MEDIA HEADLINER: Natural conservative trying to move Telegraph front of mind.(The Daily Telegraph company advertising)

Charles Moore has to aim younger without upsetting old readers.

That most British of performers Stephen Fry has much in common with The Daily Telegraph. Fry has complained that no matter what he does in an interview he always comes across the same. He might swear like a docker or namecheck his favourite rock bands but the articles would always highlight his innate cosy Britishness.

The owners of The Daily Telegraph say the same about their product. Feeling that the newspaper is more dynamic and less old- fashioned than potential readers give it credit for, they are embarking on an pounds 8 million awareness exercise, using three TV ads by Clemmow Hornby Inge. The main aim is to bring in more readers from the 30- to 45-year-old age range.

The ads support editorial changes introduced last Saturday that include a modified front-page, a modernised masthead, a revamped magazine and expanded arts and books coverage. More radical perhaps is the introduction of Irvine Welsh as a columnist.

Along with other broadsheet titles, The Daily Telegraph is not having it easy. Circulation is on the decline (in January it fell 4 per cent to 930,023) and it has been languishing under the magic one million mark since a decision to strip out a large number of bulk copies last autumn.

And the National Readership Survey figures show The Daily Telegraph is desperately in need of attracting readers at the younger end. In the year to September 2002 its 25- to 34-year-old readership fell 13 per cent to 188,000. However, it did manage to grow its 35 to 44 readership by 12 per cent to 371,000.

The cynics who suggest that the newspaper has lost touch with reality lay the blame at its editor's door. They seem suspicious of Charles Moore's high Tory Roman Catholicism and suggest that his support for Iain Duncan Smith and supposed obsession with countryside and Tory parish issues is a turn-off for most readers.