Newspaper Readership
The latest Nielsen newspaper readership figures show a general decline, but some exceptions in comparing June 2007 to June 2006:
- NZ Herald 558,000 +1.6%
- Sunday Star-Times 544,000 -5.9%
- Sunday News 354,000 – 10.6%
- Herald on Sunday 317,000 -0.6%
- Dominion Post 245,000 -3.9%
- The Press 221,000 -5.6%
- Otago Daily Times 111,000 +2.8%
- Waikato Times 95,000 +4.4%
Fairfax has to be worried – both Sunday newspapers are plummeting, and both major dailies also declining significantly.
Looking at magazines, we find:
- NZ Woman’s Weekly 916,000 -3.9%
- Woman’s Day 880,000 -1.5%
- New Idea 503,000 – 5.6%
- The Listener 275,000 -12.1%
- North & South 262,000 -13.5%
- Time Magazine 229,000 +4.6%
- FHM 201,000 -6.5%
- Metro 129,000 -16.2%
- Investigate 60,000 -4.8%
Metro, North & South and The Listener are also all plummeting.
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Tags: Media
August 20th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Shame to see Time growing at the expense of home grown magazines.
Time is like the Weetbix of magazines, its boring, safe, utterly predictable and incapable of expressing the slightest scepticism about anything.
Its the Volkish Beobdachter of the Anglo-American empire.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:28 am
This is the beginning of Labour’s legacy, the NCEA “scholars” coming through the system – they can only read text messages so why bother with a newspaper.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:29 am
The leftist agenda the SST regularly promotes has not helped that newspaper and a good thing too. It would be better business to be more balanced instead of being Helen Clark’s rag. I thought Time was the public relations mag for CIA, so I like to read it from time to time to see how CIA see things.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:49 am
So what is the Waikato times doing that the other papers aren’t? Is there growth in Hamilton that is causing the natural growth of the paper, or are they taking certain editorial stances or running heavier on certain issues?
Sad to see the decline of Metro and North and South. They’ve both been such good reads for so many years, with Metro in decline since 1996 and North and South a bit tired for the last couple of years.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:50 am
The decline of the Listener is utterly predictable – Pamela Stirling has been an absolute disaster and needs to be sacked.
North & South has failed to recognise toeing the Rogernomics line and doing hagiographies of National Party leaders is deeply uninteresting.
Its a pity about Metro – they’ve picked up their game in recent months, hopefully they’ll recover.
The decline in general and of the newspapers in particular reflect a general loss of patience by the public with the the dumbing down of the media – one can’t go past Simon Upton’s description – “The manic depressive tendency in the national psyche is in no small part attributable to a media hothouse that substitutes gullible hysteria and serial hyperbole for sober scepticism and substance.”
People now still hunger for information, but are increasingly turning to the resurgent film documentaries (i.e. Sicko), and the internet for news. The message for Fairfax and APN? You’ve cut to deep.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:03 am
I recently terminated my subscription to the SST because I was sick of their leftist propaganda and biased left wing reporting.
The only decent column is every second week when Matthew Hooten gets to say his ten cents worth.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:04 am
I expect investigate magazine to rise from 4.8% as the election gets nearer . Talk about rock your smelly socks off Helen C .
August 20th, 2007 at 9:06 am
*sigh* Pushing past all the political posturing above, could it have more to do with the simple reality that newspapers and magazines are discretionary purchases, and pretty easy to lose if you’ve got to tighten the belt? Just a thought.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Yes Craig. Why buy it when you can read it on the net? And you don’t get a hernia carting all the bloody paper back up the drive each week. Oh, I forgot. You get The Cook to cart the bloody paper up the drive each week.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Yes Adolf,
Why keep a dog and bark!
Interesting to see the Speights drinkers were taking an interest in demise of DBP.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:40 am
It is true that papers and to some extent magazines are in long run decline as younger folk get distracted by tv and now the net.
However, Fairfax needs to be paying closest attention as to why the SST is failing, or ’sinking” as I describe over at No Minister, losing sales at a greater rate than other papers (bar their Sunday News).
Ceratinly Hamilton is growing rapidly, which is helping the Waikato Times, but it and the Press in Christchurch take a more centrist or even-handed approach to politics, so they succeed better.
The New Zealand market is so small that papers cannot afford to piss off any sector of their audience. As kiwi papers tend to be monopolists in their market they have to appeal or be accessible to all.
With the SST relentlessly taking a leftist line, it will inevitably piss off and lose right of centre readers. Some years ago when it likened Don Brash to Pauline Hanson over the Orewa speech, this clearly showed how the SST was out of touch with mainstream New Zealand, as that speech rocketed Brash and National up in the polls, while all the SST did was condemn him.
I am sure people are tiring of Nicky Hagar exclusives too.
The SST has the potential to be a showcase for Fairfax Media, to set the news agenda of the coming week. Alas it is currently just a Helengrad mouthpiece and readers are fleeing in their thousands.
Its current editorial direction must be costing Fairfax millions. You would think the Sydney-based owners would realise that and remedy that.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:40 am
I agree with TomS about the Listener.
Joanne Black is also appalling.
And is it just me or do the Sunday papers seem to be getting thinner and thinner in terms of actual content?
It’s like everyone’s now trying to aim for the Woman’s Weekly/Day crowds. There are other readers out there too you know!
August 20th, 2007 at 9:48 am
The SST is a poor overweight rag. The news is not timely, most of the major articles have been padded out to fill space and the commentators are tired and predictable.
The emphasis on the lifestyles of the rich (real estate, clothes, fashion, cars, holidays etc) probably turn more off than on. The sport reporting is also predictable and tired.
The whole thing needs a bomb under it and a serious reality check about who its audience (or perhaps was) are.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:55 am
The only magazine I buy now is Cuisine. Bi-monthly and worth every cent. No politics but lots of good food.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:57 am
TomS said “North & South has failed to recognise toeing the Rogernomics line and doing hagiographies of National Party leaders is deeply uninteresting.”
Obviously TomS, you didn’t read Deborah Coddington’s “puff piece” on Annette King a couple of issues ago. It was classic women’s magazine stuff – no hard questions, just tea and sympathy. North and South has gone downhill since its most recent makeover.
Meanwhile, Ian Wishart will take some satisfaction in Investigate Magazine being the current affairs magazine in least decline!
August 20th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Tim – youre taking the piss?? TIme is the leftist mag from Hell.
Newspapers all over the globe are in decline. Its all about the web now!
Newspaper web sites are just going to get better and better. they will become all round news outlets – lots of video etc.
Look what murdoch wants to do with the Wall Street Journal – make it free and online only!
August 20th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Newspapers are always good in the winter time to start the log fires. Why people read the printed Labour propaganda is beyond my thinking ?
August 20th, 2007 at 10:00 am
i should add, i never buy a newspaper, but i read both the NZ Herald and Sydney morning herald every day. also use Google news a lot (even though they are bias to the left).
As for magazines – i usually pick up a copy of ralph and FHM for bathroom reading. a couple of bodybuilding mags to inspire me to keep going to the gym
download a shitload of mags though – all PC mags, newsweek, businessweek, the economist etc
August 20th, 2007 at 10:12 am
There’s an interesting article here if anyone has a couple of minutes…
(And yes, bla bla bla, lefty bias.)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20471
August 20th, 2007 at 10:47 am
The SST may be starting to listen to its readers with this editorial attacking the government: http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4169934a22678.html
August 20th, 2007 at 10:56 am
The present standard of politics in New Zealand could not have reached its present low, without the co-operation of the Media.
Media during and after the last election ran cartoons depicting the bribery and rorts that were prevalent.
Yet despite the Auditor-General’s and Solicitor-General’s report on Political Parties Advertising Expenditure in the last election we now have on the statutes the shameful – The Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation0 Bill and a proposal to add to it, the Electoral Finance Bill.
The media purposefully fails to query the so called need for reform, because there is none and they will not expose this. The fairness of the Electoral Act 1993 depended on the policing of it.
Police failed utterly, not only to carry out their statutory duties and police the Acts, but also allegedly by lack of action and paucity of investigation, successfully buried allegations of misappropriation of Public Funds from the Prime Minister’s Leader’s Funds.
The Media are fully aware of these allegations but ignore them.
One time we looked up to the media but they along with politicians are now bottom of the heap contenders. No wonder sales are dropping along with the reputations of politicians and the bureaucracy.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Hear Hear Frank, I bought the SST yesterday to see if the leftie BS factor was still rampant, it will light the woodburner tonight…..again, the suckup socialist toadies are still running amok
August 20th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
The Waikato Times a few years ago started circulating further north – they used to go only about as far as Huntly, or maybe Rangiriri.
They’ve picked up a lot of readers in the rural area in north Waikato and in the Franklin area of Pukekohe-Tuakau-Waiuku.
One of the reasons is they have good coverage of farming issues. The Herald used to, but they were silly enough to lose a couple of very good farming journos a few years ago.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
And the slide will get worse as all the new eco-conscious Gen X, Y and Z etc kiddies realise that thousands of trees are felled to deliver this drivel to their doorsteps.
Newspapers are fast becoming totally redundant.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
If ever there was any evidence that we are growing more retarded as a society it is the increase in Time Magazine’s readership – god help us.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
The Listener 275,000 -12.1%
not surprised, i read it for the arts sections, and the music sections by jim pickananny are awefull, bring back the old music writers.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Yeah les – lets boycott the print media, and save the planet!
August 20th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Roger Nome – you will be pleased to see however that Reader’s Digest is (like you) holding its own….
August 20th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
What should we expect when we only have “journalists”, not reporters. Journalists get a ticket from a university or polytechnic and start with a pink tinge and a separation from the people they want to reach. Examples of this tin ear were the uncritical recitement of Clark’s diatribes after 911.. followed by the public laying truckloads of flowers in from of the US embassey and polls showing high support for the US. Then those famous headlines and editorials berating Brash’s Orewa speech.. followed by polls showing over 80% of the public agreed with Brash. What a climbdown after that!
In this little country the politicians in power are the lifeblood of the print media, and the media is going to be very careful about pissing them off. I suspect that like the Govt., the media have their own little focus groups to advise whether to run some story or other.. how else to explain the slow start out of the blocks on the Electoral Finance Bill.
JC
August 20th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I though Time was CIA. Maybe CIA is going left like the rest of the US.
August 20th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Tdk, tsk, you’ve all mised the big story here. Computerworld up to 38,000 from 36,000 – and for the six months hitting 41,000.
Popular wisdom is we are in a sector that should be succumbing first …
August 20th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Geez, can’t spel eether
August 20th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
I read all my newspapers via pressdisplay.com – so…I am not sure my readership would be counted…in addition to my regular o/seas reads, I *sometimes* suffer the awfulness of the The DumbPost and the horrid Herald. By the way, I would commend pressdisplay to anyone interested in accessing up-to-date o/seas papers.
August 20th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
What ever happened to the circulation or “number sold” have they declined so much that they dare not print how many(few) copies are coming off the presses.
Does the readership now include online ‘readers ‘ like me. It doesnt say explicitly but I suppose it must as its the only way the herald could get an increase
August 20th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
papers and blogs
and bumps in the night
and people in togs
that are way too tight
all scary tings metinks
August 20th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
I haven’t bought a newspaper or magazine for four or five years
And the only newspaper/magazine I routinely visit online is the Economist (now totally free)
August 20th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
what the trouble with them masgazines what you said farrar, that there too many words and yous got to have better looking girls in mn thatt
August 20th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Selma said “What ever happened to the circulation or “number sold” have they declined so much that they dare not print how many(few) copies are coming off the presses.
Does the readership now include online ‘readers ‘ like me. It doesnt say explicitly but I suppose it must as its the only way the herald could get an increase”
Good point Selma – you ask sensible questions when you stay away from politics!! I worked in the Circulation Dept at a provincial daily a few years ago, and was interested in the rorts that were being pulled to get circulation numbers up. What you see isn’t necessarily what you get! Just an example – our paper ran a farming supplement, once a month, delievered free to every rural property in the district. A percentage of all the advertising was transferred from the advertising dept to circulations, so the advertisers were actually buying the “free” papers – which allowed circulations to include them in their figures – 5000+ papers once a month helped made a small but significant difference to the average daily circulation, which, of course, could be used to attract more advertisers. Legal? Maybe – ethical? Hmmmm……..
August 20th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
I too think there is something fishy about the Herald’s claims. For God’s sake, I don’t know one person who is the least interested in the boring pseudo liberal claptrap of the Castro loving Woodham. Crosswired Coddington is another limp and disjointed bore. Marxist crap from McCarten. Little Audrey, another common and garden type media commie trying hard to be objective. Red Rudman, completely unreadable. Gwynne Dyer, winner of the world’s dumbest propagandist’s award for his promotion of the Bush low IQ lie.
Fran O’Sullivan is the only one with anything interesting to say. The rest of them are just so tired, and their stuff is yawn inducing twenty years behind the times crapola. Of course that’s the way the Herald Editor, that limp liberal NYT arse licking wimp, likes it. He’d rather see his paper hit the wall than publish anything that offends the sensibilities of the simpering “urban liberals” he sees as his main market..
Where’s NZ’s Ann Coulter? Burt Prelutsky? Mike S. Adams? These guys know how to write an interesting opinion piece. Compare these provocative articles to the wet predictable leftist crap you read in the Herald.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2007/08/15/if_at_first_you_dont_succeed,_lie,_lie_again
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams/2007/08/20/unprotected
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BurtPrelutsky/2007/08/20/the_left_is_brain-dead#
C’mon, even you commies know I’m right.
August 20th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
“If ever there was any evidence that we are growing more retarded as a society it is the increase in Time Magazine’s readership – god help us”.
I think this is Rogernome’s best ever comment.
It’s sad to see Metro drop down the drain pipe, yet perhaps it’s time to stop their leftist fluffy nonsense and get with the programme.
A male editor would have helped no end, however they dropped the ball and appointed Sally Duggan whose experience includes such well known flagship publications as KiaOra, Little Treasures, Your Home & Garden, NZ Home + Entertaining and Taste.
With such a background I look forward to Metro evolving into stories on flying Maori babies who potter around the garden in search of food.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:27 am
test
August 21st, 2007 at 12:28 am
I too think there is something fishy about the Herald’s claims. For God’s sake, I don’t know one person who is the least interested in the boring pseudo liberal claptrap of the Castro loving Woodham. Crosswired Coddington is another limp and disjointed bore. Marxist crap from McCarten. Little Audrey, another common and garden type media commie trying hard to be objective. Red Rudman, completely unreadable. Gwynne Dyer, winner of the world’s dumbest propagandist’s award for his promotion of the Bush low IQ lie.
Fran O’Sullivan is the only one with anything interesting to say. The rest of them are just so tired, and their stuff is yawn inducing twenty years behind the times crapola. Of course that’s the way the Herald Editor, that limp liberal NYT arse licking wimp, likes it. He’d rather see his paper hit the wall than publish anything that offends the sensibilities of the simpering “urban liberals” he sees as his main market..
Where’s NZ’s Ann Coulter? Burt Prelutsky? Mike S. Adams? These guys know how to write an interesting opinion piece. Compare this to the wet predictable leftist crap you read in the Herald.
C’mon, even you commies know I’m right.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:29 am
Compare these provocative articles to the wet predictable leftist crap you read in the Herald.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2007/08/15/if_at_first_you_dont_succeed,_lie,_lie_again
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams/2007/08/20/unprotected
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BurtPrelutsky/2007/08/20/the_left_is_brain-dead#
C’mon, even you commies know I’m right.
August 21st, 2007 at 5:18 am
Niche specialist magazines aside, buying newspapers and broad spectrum magazines is a tax on stupidity in an internet age.
August 21st, 2007 at 5:43 am
As an expatriate kiwi in the UK I am very sorry that the mags such as North and South, Metro, and even the N Z Listener seem in terminal decline and/or dumbing down. They’ve been rare and useful glimpses of NZ ideas and life. I would like to think new and essential mags will start up, but fear publishers currently are too much in thrall with advertisers simple belief that only teenagers and twenty somethings are worth pandering to. Baby boomers beware…
August 21st, 2007 at 8:20 am
Sorry about the multiples. Think I’ve got it now. Something to do with anti-spam software and multiple urls.
[DPF: Yes if more than three links it gets held for approval]