We always buy The Sunday Times, but I really think it's about time we stopped.
This last Sunday it contained FIVE FULL PAGES of adverts. TWO for Rolex watches, ONE for British Gas, ONE for JPMorgan Chase, and ONE more for Louis Vuitton.
FIVE full pages out of a total of 27 is 18.5%. Which is roughly 90 pence of the £4.50 cost of the paper. And that is just for the FULL pages; there are plenty of half and quarter pages as well, making up another at least TWO more whole pages. So in all there are SEVEN whole pages out of 27 devoted to advertising, for which WE PAY.
All the other sections; sport, finance, homes, travel, etc, are also filled with advertising. It seems as if we are willingly funding being bombarded with adverts, when I feel that they should be paying us as recipients.
Imagine a shop that simply shows adverts rather than selling anything, and you are charged £4.50 to enter! That's how I feel about The Sunday Times.
Am I being unreasonable?
I used to buy the Daily Telegraph whenever I was in the UK. I realised I was skimming the news and only spending time on the crossword. I guess the paper is £3+ now and that is more than a crossword is worth to me.
ReplyDeleteI do read the pages of the ST that aren't adverts, but all the other sections go directly to the recycling bin. I keep the TV section, but that's all. It's not worth £4.50.
DeleteI feel the same about carrier bags, and often turn them inside out.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Why should we become walking adverts.
DeleteIf they don't have all that advertising the paper will close. If you're paying 4.50 you want a lot of reading and not about British Gas .
ReplyDeleteWe always used to buy a Sunday paper. The articles and extras kept us reading for most of the week. It was one of the first things we stopped in 2012 when the economic crisis hit.
You find everything online nowadays.
But now we have no newspaper to clean windows. What are fish n chips wrapped in now?
Fish-n-Chips haven't been wrapped in newspaper for years. I think the EU banned it. All that poisonous ink!
DeleteOur government needs this commercial world, the VAT received is huge, so we are bombarded with stuff we don't want or need until we see it, thank God we look the other way these days.
ReplyDeleteWhen the ad's come on TV, I leave the room.
DeleteOur friend sent us a "friends and family" link to the Times Online from his subscription. It just arrived yesterday so I get my first free update today!
ReplyDeleteLuckily you won't get all the ad's. It used to be free online.
DeleteI detest adverts too. They seem to crop up everywhere. However, the sad truth is that advertising revenue effectively subsidises publications like "The Sunday Times", helping them to remain in the black. A necessary evil.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they should make it little more discreet. These huge double page ad's are very annoying.
DeleteIf you bought the Radio Times, the annual subscription is £130 these days.
ReplyDeleteI already have the day's TV schedule on the TV itself. I just click 'menu' and there it is.
DeleteI rarely see a newspaper these days. Like you, I have all the news from MSN. Not that I believe everything I read, but do get a laugh at some of the articles that are probably meant to be taken seriously!
ReplyDeleteWith AI about, one has to take everything as a possible hoax.
DeleteI haven't bought a newspaper for years. I don't know what to believe nowadays and much of it is scaremongering. XXXX
ReplyDeleteI really don't know why we bother with the ST.
DeleteI agree the ads are annoying.
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to determine if your benefit of having the ST content overrides the ads. I gave up on newspapers. I do subscribe to the "Economist" magazine (published in UK). It covers world economics and news. There are no ads except for a few executive job search ads.
I don't mind a few ad's as long as they don't take pride of place. A bit of discretion would be better. Whenever I'm 'home alone', I never bother with newspapers.
DeleteI don't know why anybody buys a newspaper these days, you can get it all online for no cost at all.
ReplyDeleteFor The Sunday Times online; you have to pay. We do like several of the ST writers, but whether they're worth the cost or not is another question.
DeleteHmm...One could argue that you pay 4.50 for 20 pages of good articles and get 7 pages of adverts to read for free. :)
ReplyDeleteHmmm. I'm not that big an optimist!
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