A.
Although there are two news services operating worldwide — the Associated Press and United Press International — the tremendous size of the nation, the variety of time zones, and the general preoccupation with mainly local issues make it difficult for national daily newspapers to exist. An attempt has been made to introduce the "popular" US Today on a nationwide basis, and The Wall Street Journal comes close to being a national newspaper. The New York Times, with a circulation of 900,000, is perhaps the most influential daily newspaper. All large cities have at least one newspaper and although largely concerned with local affairs, they are also read in other states. | | |
B.
Imagine turning on the television and finding nothing to watch but game shows and soap operas. Less children's TV, fewer news programmes, no costume dramas or wildlife shows. Many people say that this is what will happen to British Television. They say so because the TV companies have a certain freedom to show more low-quality programmes like game shows. Game shows are much cheaper to make. They are watched by many people. If the game show has a larger audience, the TV company can charge more for advertising and make higher profits. Current affairs programmes have smaller audiences, so they attract fewer advertisers and the TV company makes less money. So critics are worried that TV companies will cut down on high-quality, expensive programmes. | | |
C.
There are over 120 daily (Monday to Saturday) and Sunday newspapers and about 1,000 weekly newspapers. These figures include certain specialized papers with circulations limited not by region but by interest; for instance, business, sporting and religious newspapers, and newspapers in foreign languages. The term "newspaper" can only be loosely applied to the top-selling dailies, however, as these tabloids contain mainly coverage of "human" news and scandals as opposed to political and economic matters, which are covered in depth in the larger quality papers. | | |
D.
The country has sales of national newspapers averaging around 15 million copies on weekdays and almost 18 million on Sundays (besides the provincial daily newspapers and the daily evening newspapers that most towns and cities have), only in Japan are more newspapers sold per person. Newspapers are not subsidized (although the greatest source of income is advertising) and there is no fixed price. They are financially independent of any political party and any political bias results from traditional positions and the influence of the owner. | | |
E.
Television viewing is by far the most popular leisure pastime in Britain. Nearly all households have a television set. Over 50 per cent of households have two or more television sets and average viewing time for the population aged four and over is 25 hours a week. Growing numbers are using video recorders to watch programmes at times other than their transmission: the proportion of households with a video recorder is rising. | | |
F.
an extra title | | |