Moskovskiy Komsomolets 6 January 1997 page 1

A popularity rating of daily newspapers has been compiled by sociologists of the "Obshchestvennoye Mneniye [Public Opinion]" fund on the basis of a poll conducted among residents of the capital in November and December 1996. Much as one would have expected, MOSKOVSKIi KOMSOMOLETS placed ahead of all the other publications by a giant margin -- it is read by nearly every second Muscovite. On the whole, the "table of ranks" of the daily press -- the percentage of readers of this or that newspaper among those polled -- looks like this:

MOSKOVSKII KOMSOMOLETS - 47.5
KOMSOMOLSKAIA PRAVDA - 6.5
VECHERNYAIA MOSKVA - 5.8
IZVESTIIA - 5.0
MOSKOVSKAIA PRAVDA - 3.2
TRUD - 2.8
KOMMERSANT-DAILY - 2.4
SEGODNIA - 1.5
PRAVDA - 1.5
NEZAVISIMAIA GAZETA - 1.3

MOSKOVSKII KOMSOMOLETS' rating of popularity with the readers (those who place the newspaper first) also proved to be the highest -- 18.9 percent. By way of comparison, KOMSOMOLSKAIA PRAVDA and VECHERNYAIA MOSKVA scored each 2.3 percent, IZVESTIIA, 2 percent, and TRUD, as little as 0.9 percent.

The last, and the most remarkable fact is that MK's readers are Muscovites in totally different age categories. The most avid MK readers are men of 44 to 55 years of age, or 25.2 percent (as against 2.7 percent in KOMSOMOLSKAIA PRAVDA, 2.3 percent in IZVESTIIA, 0.7 percent in SEGODNIA, and 0.6 percent in KOMMERSANT-DAILY). MOSKOVSKII KOMSOMOLETS' popularity rating with Muscovites under 25 is 23.8 percent (KOMSOMOLSKAIA PRAVDA's rating with them is as little as 2 percent). Resident's of the capital between 25 and 39 years of age who read MK account for 24 percent (KOMSOMOLSKAIA PRAVDA, 3.8 percent, VECHERNYAIA MOSKVA and IZVESTIIA, 2.3 percent each). MK is no less popular with the fair sex. The paper's average popularity rating with female Muscovites of various ages is 19.5 percent (trailed by VECHERNYAIA MOSKVA with 2.4 percent, KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA with 2.2 percent, IZVESTIA with 1.9 percent, and so on).