Who is shocked or even in the least bit surprised that Page 3 of today’s edition of The Sun has a woman with her boobs out on it? Anyone…? If you have your arm raised then I’m looking at you very quizzically.
You see the newspaper never said that it had dropped the topless photo from its daily editions. They actually went out of their way to say very little on the issue. If they were dropping it then you know what, they would’ve said it very openly and very loudly for the positive publicity that they would get from the media and from those who do not buy the newspaper.
Wait a minute…what were those last few words again?
those who do not buy the newspaper
And that my friends (and those who are indifferent and heck enemies if any of them read) is the issue. I wrote this a couple of years back and it still stands true today as much as it did then:
Page 3 to The Sun is nothing to do with their thoughts of sexual objectification. It is all about money (like most businesses) and financially it obviously is worth it to them otherwise they wouldn’t do it. The people who don’t like it don’t buy it anyway so why would they care what these people think? Isn’t that a very bizarre way to run a business? Would you run a business where the people who make you money like what you do but those who don’t make you money are complaining and you listen to the latter and not the former?
So this is what in most likelihood happened over the past few weeks. The Sun decided that they were going to experiment with dropping the tits and seeing how it effected circulation. No-one said anything after Friday’s edition had no boobs but when none appeared on Monday, the news ran with it and ran with it hard. This meant that Tuesday was the first day the newspaper had no tits on show where most people knew about it and what happened? By Thursday the boobs were back.
Either they were trolling the world or they lost a whole load of sales because maybe, just maybe, some people buy the newspaper not for the news but for a picture of a naked woman’s top half. Another newspaper still has topless photos of women on its page 3 and I bet the Daily Star’s sales went up dramatically on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Sun is not a bastion of morality. It is about making money. If they get more sales by having a picture of a woman baring her chest then they’ll continue to do it. That is just business logic. Those who don’t like Page 3 in its current guise don’t buy the newspaper anyway and they won’t return to the paper just because the picture stopped appearing, whereas they would lose sales from those who like it and don’t have it any more, those people will find an alternative tabloid and look what else is out there, is that the Daily Star I see…?
Quoting myself again:
Sometimes we see the world from our own point of view and not from the point of view of others. Page 3 sells newspapers. I don’t like it. You probably don’t like it but it is a fact and until it doesn’t then why would they stop? The Sun as we all know isn’t the bastion of moral fortitude and it doesn’t pretend to be. It is a newspaper that serves as the news of the lowest common denominator. I don’t think that is an unfair statement and the people that buy it are not those who care about tits on Page 3.
I know people will say I back Page 3 because I’ll say I’m not shocked that they continue to publish it. It is either that or I can be the business logic behind it. I don’t understand why people would ever think that a newspaper would change its content to suit those who didn’t buy the newspaper in the first place. If The Sun drops Page 3 then it loses money and also it loses influence and that shouldn’t be overlooked. Having the biggest circulation gives (or at least gives the perception) of more influence over more people. One thing we know about Rupert Murdoch, he likes having influence!
Page 3 will continue to exist as long as more people buy The Sun (and the Daily Star) than would if those newspapers didn’t have a topless woman photo. It is just business plain and simple. Sexual objectification of women and changing attitudes towards that won’t be achieved by cutting off the access to boobs in a newspaper. This is a deeper problem in society and this one symbolic gesture was never going to work as long as they went after one newspaper only and the left the other newspaper who did exactly the same alone.
I’ve said it repeatedly over the years and people say I don’t know what I’m talking about, that is because they are only seeing things from their own PoV and not from a business point of view. Nearly 2.75million people buy either The Sun or the Daily Star daily at a near 5:1 ratio. If just 10% of The Sun’s readership switches to the Daily Star that is a dramatic change and puts The Sun in the clutches of the Daily Mail for biggest daily newspaper and in turn moves the Daily Star above both the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph.
The Sun wants to have the largest circulation in the UK. Tits help them do that. I just wish people would take a step back and understand that this has nothing to do with how The Sun perceive women. This is all about how much money they make, how big a circulation they have and how much influence the newspaper (and its owner) has over the British electorate. It is no less and no more. It is that simple. Whether we like it or not that is why the boobs are back. I’m not a fan. I don’t buy the newspaper. I won’t buy the newspaper with tits or with no tits but I’m not their clientèle and that is the issue. Those that buy The Sun knows it has tits and either doesn’t care or actively like them.
Having written about this several times and along the same lines, I know that people think I’m a moron because I can compartmentalise both my personal opinion and the business decision behind the tits. To get boobs out of newspapers it needs a ban and not out of the goodness of the hearts of the editors of the two dailies who put boobs there. Turkey’s wouldn’t vote for Christmas so why would newspaper editors vote for something that would lose them money? They wouldn’t. The Sun has now seen that they sell more newspapers with boobs than they do without so the boobs will stay until their is legislation that says they can’t. The fight to get tits out of the newspaper has to go to through government, it always has been, now maybe those who are leading the fight will understand this.
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