Shropshire Star Analysis + History

Shropshire Star


The Shropshire Star is a regional newspaper, which mainly covers the whole of Shropshire, but it also covers parts of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Cheshire, the Llangollen area and northern Powys in the UK
The Shropshire Star is published every single day of the week, and and is 42p an issue. The newspaper is usually sold in shops and supermarkets but you can get them home delivered for a small monthly fee. The Shropshire Star is owned by Midlands News Association and was the first new post war evening newspaper, which when came out, was already using new technology that even some national dailies weren't using. The Midland News Association also owns 2 radio stations, The Severn and The Wyre, these were then sold in 2011. It is the 9th leading publisher in the country, and has sub-sections of Express + Star Ltd. and Shropshire Newspapers Ltd. The Midland News Association owns these papers, but they are published by higher end publishers. Because many of us live in Shropshire and the paper seems so normal and small to us, it actually had a huge effect on the print media industry today. Hot metal printing was the normal slow way of prinintg used by every paper, however the Shropshire Star was the first newspaper to introduce web offset printing. Offset printing is a commonly used in this day and age. Its when the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. There used to be 8 editions of the paper, these being County, South, North, West and East. Where as now I have only found a County one.


The Shropshire Star was the first post war evening newspaper, with its first edition being released on the 5th October 1964. The Shropshire Star was at the forefront of new technology, as it had better picture and printing quality. Amazingly such a small independent paper managed to create its own identity in comparison to the national dailies, as it became the pioneer of colour! Shropshire Star was the first paper to have a front cover in colour, and ironically it was released the same day of Winston Churchill's funeral. And astonishingly in March 1967 the paper was the first in britain to publish a colour photograph on the very same day it was taken, this was when the Queen herself visited Shropshire. Along side of being the first to do everything, the Shropshire Star and its sister paper in Wolverhampton were at this point at the from of revolution of all other newspapers, the computer revolution. 
Shortly the paper moved 'Double keying' (when the journalist would bring back the work for someone to type it up for them) to single keying (where the journalist typed it themselves). Effectively this turned journalists to printers as-well. in 1988 Shoprshire Star went online, and it was also one of the first too. Its web address started off as 'www.shropshire-online.com' then they recently changed it to 'www.shropshirestar.com'. The website was revamped in 2003 and 2006 to give it a more contemporary look. 


Almost 172,000 adult readers read the Shropshire Star each night, and 82% of all Shropshire Stars distributed are home delivered. This shows the high demand of the paper and its popularity. Not only this but the website for the paper impressively gets over 1 million views a month. 
Statistics:
Time spent reading the paper is a huge point in indicating weather the reader is interested. Shropshire Star average issue reader spends about 33 minutes reading the paper. And the Shropshire Star employed around 400 people. 

The total circulation for the Shropshire Star for January 2012, was 55491 with the total readership being 139927 adults, 82% of these readers have their papers home delivered (£10 a week). With 71370 being Men and 68558 being Women. According to statistics the majority of readers that buy the papers are aged between 45 and 54. Also C2DE readers, buy the paper more than ABC1, showing that working class people read it more than the upper class. The Shropshire Express + Star only got around a 19,000 nightly circulation whereas by the mid 1980s, the Shropshire Star was hitting of 100,000 readers a night. The paper then went from its original 3 editions to a further 6 more. In Shropshire, 39% of the adult population read the Shropshire Star, which is remarkable as The Sun only has 14%, coming in second. Out of 98,458 readers, 57% of them do not buy another paper to read. and 35% of these read it 6 nights a week. According to TNSmedia 2008, it takes an average of 33 minutes to read the Shropshire Star. Not only this but to appeal to the more modern audience the paper also has a website, where 182413 people visit it every month.

Not only does it have a website it also has apps available on apple iTunes. This is a more mobile approach, so you can read the paper wherever your at, without having to carry around all the paper! The paper is in a Tabloid format, which it what newspapers are typically presented as. The majority of the local news on the front page, is news that would be relevant to the whole County, rather than seperate news stories, this gives a high level of meaningfulness to the stories. Throughout the paper, the stories decrease in importance. A lot of the local news is about achievements within the county, especially to do with schools, and charity. In the back pages of the paper, there is a section for sport, which shows the achievements of schools, and sports teams in the county, and the back page shows main sports news from major events, or major sports matches between different teams. Photographs are used throughout the paper in some articles to promote certain stories, this could be a promotion for a theatre performance or a charity event. They are also used to identify people who have committed crimes or have been killed. They are mainly used to inform people of a story. There is enough national and international news to keep a high solus readership, as recently we have seen stories about the Oscars, and the Grammys.

The lexis in this paper is formal, and yet easy to understand. They do use sophisticated words at times, but nothing that is hard to understand. The mode of address within the paper is very friendly and direct. This suggests that the paper is aware of its target audience, who is a varied mixture of ABC1 and C2DE readers, this reflects on the paper well as it shows that it has a high standard for its readers. 

The Shropshire Star is Shropshire's biggest paper and at the rate its going for is one of the best value for money. Due to it being on such high demand there isn't any competitors that will threaten profits or the paper in any way what so ever.