As A Weekly Alternative Newspaper
The more recent usage of the term 'tabloid' refers to weekly or semi-weekly newspapers in tabloid format. Many of these are essentially straightforward newspapers, publishing in tabloid format, because subway and bus commuters prefer to read smaller-size newspapers due to lack of space. These newspapers are distinguished from the major daily newspapers, in that they purport to offer an "alternative" viewpoint, either in the sense that the paper's editors are more locally oriented, or that the paper is editorially independent from major media conglomerates.
Other factors that distinguish "alternative" weekly tabloids from the major daily newspapers are their less-frequent publication, and that they are usually free to the user, since they rely on ad revenue. As well, alternative weekly tabloids tend to concentrate on local- or even neighbourhood-level issues, and on local entertainment in the bars and local theatres.
Alternative tabloids can be positioned as upmarket (quality) newspapers, to appeal to the better-educated, higher-income sector of the market; as middle-market (popular); or as downmarket (sensational) newspapers, which emphasize sensational crime stories and celebrity gossip. In each case, the newspapers will draw their advertising revenue from different types of businesses or services. An upmarket weekly's advertisers are often organic grocers, boutiques, and theatre companies while a downmarket's may have those of trade schools, supermarkets, and adult services, both usually contain ads from local bars, auto dealers, movie theaters, and a classified ads section.
Read more about this topic: Tabloid (newspaper Format)
Famous quotes containing the words weekly, alternative and/or newspaper:
“True love never goes without respect; and its counterfeit is often obliged to feign it, till an occasion serves to throw it out of the windows.”
—Anonymous, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. Weekly Visitor or Ladies Miscellany, p. 211 (April 1803)
“If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A strange age of the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private man’s door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard pushed and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)