---
title: Who buys newspapers?
description: Some home truths from a comedy podcast
---

[Media Hunter](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter)

# [Who buys newspapers?](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/who-buys-newspapers)

 Written by [Alan Hunter](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/author/alan-hunter) | Mar 21, 2025, 4:00:00 PM

**Some home truths from a comedy podcast**

This week, by way of a change, I bring you an excerpt from a podcast I listen to regularly, [Frank Off the Radio](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/frank-off-the-radio-the-frank-skinner-podcast/id308800732). It features Frank Skinner, the comedian, poetry aficionado and songwriter, alongside Emily Dean and Pierre Novelli.

It’s hard to say what the podcast is about except it’s quite Seinfeldian. It’s about modern life and its oddities and indignities. And it’s very funny.

[This week](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-frank-skinner-show/id308800732?i=1000699434103) Frank told a story about his mother-in-law asking him to get her something while he was out.

For everyone working in the news industry, it is instructive, if not funny. As you read on, bear in mind that not that long ago he had a weekly column in The Times.

Frank Skinner: “So my mother-in-law said, will you get me a Sunday Times? And I thought, what?!? Get you a Sunday Times?!? What, a newspaper?!? I can't remember the last time I bought a newspaper. I bet then it was because I was in it.”

Emily Dean: “I can't remember the last time I read a newspaper.”

FS: “No, who gets a newspaper? I said, ‘Yeah, how much are they?’ And they're about five quid or something. For a newspaper!”

Pierre Novelli: “That's mad … It was like she was asking for pipe tobacco or something.”

FS: “So, they hadn't got The Sunday Times. And I said to the guy, ‘Have you not got The Sunday Times?’ He said, ‘They're all gone, mate’. I said, ‘What?!? To who? Who's bought them? Has the local chip shop got in and bought them all?

“So, people are buying them. People are still doing that thing of sitting and drinking coffee and looking at the Sunday papers. They're losers.”

“… Anyway, I phoned my mother-in-law and said, ‘Look, I've tried three shops, no Sunday Times.’

She said, ‘I'll have an Observer.’

“So I took it. And you know what? I folded it over. I was a bit embarrassed – not to have the Observer, but to have a newspaper. I didn't want to think people had come from the past.”

Frank Skinner is 68 and even he thinks to be seen with a newspaper is “ageing”. Gulp.

[View full post](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/who-buys-newspapers)

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