London Media - Information, Everyday Tips

London Media

Let's start with the newspapers. London has 13 daily national newspapers, two of which are concerned solely with sport and another with money. If you are looking for gravitas you have a choice of four. In order of solemnity they could be rated as The Times, The Telegraph with The Guardian and The Independent tying for third place.

The tabloids are lead by The Sun, followed by The Star, The Mirror and the former communist paper, now the Morning Star. The Express and The Daily Mail could perhaps be called quality tabloids.

The Racing Post and the Sporting Life cater for the sporting fraternity and the Financial Times, or FT as it is colloquially known, is read by those who profess to own the country.

Particular to London itself is The Standard, an evening newspaper on sale from not long after lunchtime.

If in London on a Sunday there is a choice of six, all nationals. Both the Times and the Telegraph have their Sunday versions and are joined by The Observer. All three have heavy duty supplements and magazines, though perhaps not by American standards.

The Sunday Mirror is the Sabbath version of The Daily Mirror and The People is a Sunday tabloid from the same stable. The News of the World used to have a reputation for naughtiness but is now hard put to keep up with some of the others.

The London Gazette provides a nice quirky little touch. Published continuously since 1665 the Gazette is the official journal of The Crown and carries all the formal notices and promulgations necessary to the process of law and other weighty matters. For those intimately concerned with such things it is essential reading.

Moving on to the expanding world of magazines one is obliged to be selective. A relatively recent arrival is Big Issue which carries the torch for homeless people and occasionally strays into other social causes. Country Life and Field both espouse the causes of those who are anything but homeless.

The Economist looks at the world economy from the top of Big Ben, whilst the ladies have Cosmopolitan and Elle to serve their interests. For the independently-minded The Spectator provides interesting and lively reading on a wide variety of subjects. Media Week provides essential messages for the marketing-minded.

Vogue offers a view on the fashion scene and the Radio Times gives close detail of BBC TV and Radio programmes for the week. By way of a little light relief read the satirical Private Eye, which has survived a series of court actions since its foundation in 1962, and serves to help make politicians look over their shoulders.

Apart from national television the two London stations to tune into are BBC London Live and London Tonight, which is the local television programme on the national ITV network.

All BBC programmes are readily available throughout the capital. Of the many others available Classic FM is growing enormously in popularity, Soft Rock is on Heart at 106.2FM, and there is a variety of London programmes on 88.9 and 89.9FM. Very popular music to work by comes from Virgin Radio at 1215AM.

Beyond these the choice is wide but by no means on the same scale as, say, America. Somehow we manage to cope!