Simon Willison’s Weblog

Why do so many newspapers have astrology columns?

27th December 2012

My answer to Why do so many newspapers have astrology columns? on Quora

Partly because there is demand for it (if a newspaper stopped running horoscopes they would likely lose some of their subscribers to rival publications. Mainly, I imagine, for cash: At least in the UK, most newspaper horoscope pages are accompanied by adverts for premium rate phone numbers that provide a “personal” horoscope service.