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Europe's leading media networks have sponsored groundbreaking research to pinpoint the reading habits of the Continent's most influential figures.

Carat, Universal McCann, Initiative Media, MindShare and Media Planning Group have all backed the European Opinion Leaders Survey, which has been developed by the research specialists IPSOS-RSL to provide a more exclusive cross-section of consumption habits than that currently on offer from the European Business Readership Survey.

While EBRS focuses on business professionals, the EOLS survey targets highly influential figures in Europe across a wide cross-section of careers, polling people such as MEPs, EU commissioners, newspaper editors and senior executives from the area's top 750 companies.

Jim Kite, the director of global research at Universal McCann, said: 'By successfully identifying opinion formers and then subsequently getting them to open up, this research will provide us with some essential tactics on how to communicate with the important but media-elusive European citizens.'

The first set of EOLS results, unveiled in Paris yesterday, highlighted the Financial Times as the most frequently read international newspaper, taken up by 32 per cent of respondents. The International Herald Tribune was second with 24 per cent.

The Times emerged as the top dog among the UK national papers, with 15 per cent of responses against The Daily Telegraph, with 8 per cent. The Times and Tribune were most credible titles in their categories.

The Economist dominated the magazine category, coming in as both the most widely read (at 30 per cent) and the most credible. National Geographic and Time were the second and third most popular magazines respectively.