The findings come from Ipsos UK's British Business Survey 2005. An update to the last survey in 2003, it shows that The Times has narrowly surpassed the Daily Mail as the business community's most-read newspaper.
The Times' reach among the estimated population of 1.55m businessmen and women increased from 20% to 21.9%, while the Mail's fell from 23.2% to 21.8%.
Almost all other daily titles' readership fell, with the Daily Telegraph's down from 15.5% to 13% and the Financial Times' down from 13.4% to 11.2%. There was no figure for recently launched freesheet City AM.
The survey also shows what websites won the greatest share of visitors within a month, although there were no comparable figures for 2003.
With 10.7%, the edged , which got 10.3%, into second place. was third with 9% and was fourth with 6%. was not scored, but the Evening Standard's site managed 4.2%.
Ian Clark, advertising director at Times Newspapers, said: "The results of the BBS 2005 show categorically that advertisers looking to target the business audience can not afford to ignore The Times, The Sunday Times and Times Online. Individually or combined, the titles offer the most effective route in the market to an extremely valuable audience."
David Lucas, senior director of Ipsos Media, said: "The data shows that while British execs remain heavy readers of traditional print news sources, they are also embracing online options.
"This suggests that our leading executives are not replacing their traditional news sources in the internet era, but rather adding the internet as one more medium."
Online purchasing by this group surged between 2003 and 2005. The proportion of the sample banking online increased from 49% to 61%, and the proportion organising travel increased from 69% to more than 80%.
A new question for 2005 found that 20% of business people read a newspaper at the end of their day, compared with 28% in the early morning.
Radio consumption was weighted towards the BBC, which 84% had listened to within a week, compared with almost 66% who had listened to commercial radio.
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