sporting press

   In 1994 the sports paper Marca became the daily with the biggest circulation in Spain, pushing El País into second place. By 1996 it was commanding over 12.5 percent of the market, compared with El País's 10.5 percent. Its success is a prime example of the huge popularity of the sporting press, whose four main dailies, the others being As, Sport and El Mundo Deportivo, account between them for over 20 percent of total sales. Until 1989 the most popular sports paper was As, but although it retains a loyal clientele, its circulation figures continue to drop. More than 30 percent of its readership is over the age of 45, and it has not been attracting as high a proportion of younger readers as some of the other papers. It is most widely read in Murcia, Andalusia and Catalonia.

   Marca, which in 1989 supplanted As as the leading sports daily, has successfully captured its natural audience of younger male readers across the whole range of social classes, and is widely distributed in the smaller as well as the larger population centres. It is particularly popular in Andalusia, Murcia, and Extremadura. Sport and El Mundo Deportivo, published in Barcelona, have circulations which come close to those of As, but concentrate two-thirds of their sales in Catalonia. Based on figures for the social class of their readership produced by the Estudio General de Medios (General Media Survey), El Mundo Deportivo is more "upmarket" than either As or Marca, and Sport decidedly so. Launched in 1981, Sport also attracts a slightly higher proportion of female readers (23 percent) than the more usual 15–18 percent. The launch of a new sports daily, Súper Deporte, in Valencia in 1995 and the 50 percent increase in its circulation by the following, year are further proof of Spain's love affair with the sporting press.

   See also: football; media; readership; sport and leisure

   EAMONN RODGERS