Women may decide who wins the newspaper war

Why Half the Market: Women may decide who wins the newspaper war

A Business Insider article explores one of the facets of the newspaper war. The Wall Street Journal is set to launch its New York edition on the 26th of April. As the Journal and the New York Times prepare to go head to head, a determining statistic came to light. While The Time's readership is gender balanced with 51.1% men and 48.9% women, the Journal's daily readership is 62.3% men and 37.7% women.

•The Journal has made efforts to appeal to women, an increasingly valuable demographic, courting them through commercials and ad spots portraying women both as mothers and at work.
•Additionally, the paper included advertisements specifically aimed at women.
•The Journal’s female readership has grown and tends to be richer than that of the Times but the obvious imbalance remains.

So how far is the Journal willing to go try to win over the women of New York?

•In the past, the WSJ has been described as having a boys’ club atmosphere.
•It remains unclear whether or not the Journal will adapt its coverage so as to attract more women.
•Staffers have explained that though the Journal is obviously committed to drawing as many subscribers as possible, they do not see any significant change towards a more female friendly paper.

It will be interesting to see whether the Journal will be able to grab some of the New York women away from the TImes, and whether or not it even tried, beginning on the 26th.

Original Business Insider article