I’ve just come back from the Guardian’s “changing media” conference, speaking about the future of our industry and The Spectator’s intrepid adventures into cyberspace. I had a few gags in my wee speech, but the biggest laugh was when I said that the average reader of Spectator.co.uk is pushing 50 years old. That took me aback – is it so funny? The average age of the magazine reader is higher still, I said – more laughter.
It seemed deeply unfashionable to the trendies who made up (part of) the audience – surely the future lies in twenty-somethings? I have never bought this, for many reasons. First, The Spectator’s pitch is to a set of values: quality of writing, elegance of thought, independence of opinion. That appeal cuts across all age groups. It’s patronising nonsense to think that young people don’t appreciate the elegance, or that pensioners are not every bit as intelligent as the thrusting twenty-somethings.
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