Newspapers: Imitating the Imitator

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Soft Pedal. After its amateurish debut, the supplement has graduated into a Sunday staple for both advertisers and readers. Many photographs bear the credit line Lord Snowdon (Princess Margaret's husband) and bylines are big: Ian Fleming, Lord Attlee, etc. Circulation stands at 1,200,000; the Daily Telegraph's Sunday edition started in 1962 with a phenomenal 1,400,000 only to level off around 650,000.

The imitation of Thomson continues. Even the popular giants have taken note of the success of Thomson's appeal to the aspiring new middle class—and of the waning marketability of their own gaudy wares. The News of the World, down 2,000,000 circulation in a decade, has dropped much of its lurid crime-and-sex reporting in favor of a more serious and cultural approach. Max Aitken, Beaverbrook's son and heir, is fabricating a Thomsonlike appendage for the Sunday Express.