Media Readership in 2007
Various media chains have been trumpeting the results of the latest readership surveys. Of course they quote the most favourable so the only way to get a real view of what is happening is go to to the source data at AC Nielsen.
First let us look at the newspapers, for the metro dailies in order of largest percentage increase down:
- The Press up 4.5% from 223,000 to 233,000
- NZ Herald up 3.0% from 568,000 to 585,000
- Waikato Times up 1.1% from 94,000 to 95,000
- ODT down 3.6% from 111,000 to 107,000
- Dom Post down 3.6% from 253,000 to 244,000
And for the three Sunday newspapers:
- Herald on Sunday up 5.8% from 326,000 to 345,000
- Sunday Star-Times down 2.9% from 577,000 to 560,000
- Sunday News down 11.2% from 376,000 to 334,000
And looking at some of the magazines:
- National Business Review up 12.0% from 92,000 to 104,000
- The Listener up 3.9% from 284,000 to 295,000
- Computerworld up 2.8% from 36,000 to 37,000
- Investigate down 1.5% from 68,000 to 67,000
- North & South down 2.4% from 297,000 to 290,000
- Independent Financial Review down 13.9% from 36,000 to 31,000
- Metro down 16.4% from 152,000 to 127,000
- Netguide down 24.8% from 137,000 to 103,000
The magazine changes make some sense to me. I think NBR has had a very good year – required reading on Fridays. Metro has been in real trouble and it shows and Netguide is long gone from the must read to learn something cool category.
The one that surprises me somewhat is the Independent Financial Review. It is sometimes light on quantity, but has some very good stories and analysis.
I’ve also resubscribed to The Listener this year. I really get it for the columns rather than the articles but some of the columns are addictive.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Great minds think alike. I have even done a table to go with this issue. You’re welcome to borrow it for your own article if you like.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Being critical or more neutral towards the Labour Party has not been bad for the Herald. And this is the problem for Labour. If the papers become a publicity machine for the Labour Party it will cost them in readership. This means the National Party has got all that free publicity. The lead article in the Herald after the new year honours was the gong for Labour’s major donor. But the Dominion did not highlight this. Taking this highly critical approach to Labour has not hurt the Herald one bit. Long may it continue.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Actually the Herald circulation is in a long, slow decline, 50,000 down on its peak. Its readership is up in the latest survey, to 585000 from 568000 a year ago, but its circulation is again down, to 194706 from 196182,
February 19th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Subscribed to The Listener? Talk about taking one for the team. Putting questions of politics aside, it’s the print equivalent of Teletext.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Do these increases take population growth into account? For a newspaper to truly demonstrate an increase in readership, wouldn’t it have to compare its increase in readers to overall population increase? Otherwise, it doesn’t mean too much.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Ah, Poneke just beat me to it with his comment on readership vs circulation. The big daily newspapers all around the world are struggling with declining circulation. These figures for NZ though don’t look too bad compared to what’s happening in the USA in particular. Maybe we’re just lagging a global trend (if true that doen’t augur well for the next few years …)? Or maybe we’re more attached to our newspapers than some other western countries are?
February 19th, 2008 at 9:57 am
This is particularly the case with the Herald, Red. Auckland’s population has increased by a couple of hundred thousand in the period that the Herald’s circulation has fallen from 250,000 to 194,000.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Let’s not forget that publishing houses can manipulate both readership AND circulation figures. What’s the paid circulation figure rather than the total circ. I’ve seen publications that make a good living with only a handful of paid subscriptions… the rest are free because that’s the model that works for that publication.
The Audit Bureau is the place to visit. http://www.abc.org.nz for all your reading on reading needs.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Not much mention of “paid circulation”, which is what advertisers pay for .
readers seems to include online viewers these days.
But paid circulation can be manipulated such as free copies which are available everywhere where the business pays a nominal charge.
based on US experience the circulation figures are highly rigged especially for larger metropolitan areas.
The Herald is the only morning paper for 2.5 million people( the upper north island) yet the circulation is in a long decline- like horse racing- which will get worse as the 40+ generation dies off
February 19th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Who buys newspapers now. I hardly buy one, preferring to read it on-line.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:11 am
So the Press is on target this year to become the 2nd largest daily in NZ?
I have to say i’m surprised at their growth, given the number of people who simply read online nowadays.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:24 am
The Press regularly has street stalls giving it out free in central Christchurch – I’m talking every 2-4 weeks. Not saying it’s a bad paper or anything, but that will certainly increase their readership.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Netguide was nice 8 years ago when no one knew anything about the internet…
February 19th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I am not surprised to see that the Otago Daily Times is 3.6% down in readership. When you compare their stories and headlines to the major dailies in the rest of NZ you would think the ODT was in a different country. The ODT needs to wake up and smell the coffee and get rid of its total Labour Party bias.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Red/Poneke…..A lot of the Auckland increase in population don’t speak English and a lot more leave school without learning to read and write.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I attended intermediate school in a Waikato provincial town forty seven years ago. I was a paper boy for the Herald. Those winters were cold.
I recall that most houses got the Herald.
I was chatting to the paper distribution chap last month and was surprised to hear that the proportion of houses in that town that got the Herald was less than 8%.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Interesting ways of looking at the figures… Red’s point about population increases vs circulation change was particularly an eye-opener for me. Though as baxter says, there’d need to be some adjustment for non-English speakers.
Another point… as others have mentioned, most newspapers are putting their content online nowadays. So for them to have any increase in sales of paper copies is quite an achievement when looked at in that light.
In the magazine market, however, most of the content isn’t available free online. So the decline in circulation for both Metro and North & South suggests that the formula is seriously tired and/or they are overdue for a change in editorship.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I agree with Audent. What are the real numbers? The Dominion hands out hundreds of copies for free every day at the university and Te Papa. It is dreadful. I don’t know anyone who pays for it.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
the decline in circulation for both Metro and North & South suggests that the formula is seriously tired and/or they are overdue for a change in editorship
As I have written here, neither Metro nor North & South any longer have an editor. Maybe that is the problem.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I heard they’d given Robyn Langwell the shove but I heard an internal promotion was being lined up for the editor’s role and assumed that that had occurred. Similarly I assumed someone would be in the chair at Metro by now. You mean no one is at the helm?!
A magazine simply can’t survive without an editor, and the right editor can make a publication shine (or alternately take all the right ingredients and still produce something unreadable). An effective editor is a magazine’s “personality” – just look at Metro pre- and post-Warwick Roger: it went from being a witty raconteur to a droning bore.
What on earth is ACP’s strategy here? Any insights, poneke?