More often than not the newspapers do not know their readership. They will quote figures, but usually these figures do not stand up to scrutiny. One of the reasons for this is that newspapers in the CIS do so little market research.
Outside research is prohibitively expensive for all but the biggest newspapers.
What is more, there is little perception of the necessity or value of research in creating a product of interest to readers and almost zero appreciation of the value of research to the advertising sales team. For that reason information collected is of limited use to the advertising department. In fact it is an exceptional newspaper that builds the needs of the advertising department into its research efforts, which if they exist at all are generally editorially dominated. Many newspapers in the CIS operate blind, filling the newshole and selling advertisements through instinct and guesswork.