The Daily Mail and The Sun have different demographics reflective within their features: Femail and Woman. The Sun’s circulation between 1 October 2012 and 28 October 2012 boasts an average of 2,384,895 per issue and The Daily Mail 1,866,701. The Mail dominates the ABC1 category, largely over 65s whereas The Sun’s readership is a majority of 25-34 year olds in the ABC1 category. The Daily Mail has a 52.98% female readership although The Sun maintains a male majority with 58.05% reading on a daily basis. With the introduction of The Sun’s Woman supplement the publication could be aiming towards a different audience.
Femail was created for each Thursday edition. This is a concentrated item of several pages as a specialised feature iconic to The Mail. The newspaper from the beginning has been recognised for its female features – supermarket and fashion adverts reflect this throughout.
Femail’s layout links with the rest of the paper; the format is fairly bland with the grey title barely hinting that the insert is even for women. This colouring is continued throughout the supplement not stereotyping females at all.
The lives of real people are the focus in Femail – there is little if not any mention of celebrities. The Mail understands its audience and what their readers want without developing ideas with famous faces.
Features can easily identify the audience in Femail. The Mail uses phrases for a mature audience older than The Sun’s demographic, for example: ‘stay younger longer’ and ‘at any age’.
Femail appeals to women with families and the housewife image as articles include topics such as washing machine reviews, kitchen ideas and recipes.
Woman, however, is published daily so is fairly diluted over the week, ensuring the frequent reader’s satisfaction. Woman’s format is a double spread feature on a family story with a beauty column running alongside. It hints at the same concept that magazines such as Take a Break act on with real life stories sent in by readers.
Stories relating to mother-daughter relationships in Woman stereotype the familial bond of readers. Relationships are a recurring topic in Woman indicative of The Sun as a family newspaper. It differs to The Mail in that the audience is younger families with fashion conscious mums less interested in the home. Gender stereotypes are clearly identified in Woman with pink covering the entire supplement and with large concentration on beauty and fashion – soft news.
Slang features in Woman as The Sun maintains its tabloid roots with verbs including ‘whopping’ and ‘botched’. Rhetorical questions create a conversational tone with readers similar to other women’s lifestyle magazines. The review like format of the beauty columns in Woman reinforces this friendly tone towards readers building up a familiar bond between paper and reader.
In contrast to Femail, celebs are key figures in Woman they reinforce the articles’ information and are attractive to the younger demographic. They incorporate an image and intended reaction with little aid, making a story easier to follow and relate to.
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