Roy Morgan Readership results for New Zealand Newspapers

Thursday, 3 March 2016, 10:09 am
Press Release: Roy Morgan Research

Roy Morgan Readership results for New Zealand Newspapers and Magazines in 2015

Roy Morgan Research today releases the latest New Zealand Print Readership results for Newspapers and Magazines in the 12 months to December 2015.

Newspapers

Readership has declined for New Zealand’s major Monday-Saturday dailies: Auckland’s New Zealand Herald (down 10.9% compared with 2014 to 549,000 readers per average issue), Wellington’s Dominion Post (down 4.5% to 256,000), Christchurch’s The Press (down 11.3% to 188,000), the Otago Daily Times (down 7.9% to 93,000), and the Waikato Times (down 15.2% to 78,000).

However, a number of the country’s smaller regional mastheads have gained readers over the past year, including the Hawke’s Bay Times (up 8.2% to 66,000), Timaru Herald (up 18.5% to 32,000) and Wanganui Chronicle (also up 18.5% to 32,000)

Readership of the Herald on Sunday was virtually unchanged, down less than 1% to 325,000 readers, closing the gap on leader the Sunday Star-Times which fell 6.4% to 397,000. Sunday News suffered the largest proportional drop of any newspaper in 2015, down 36.9% to 77,000 readers per issue.

Newspaper Inserted Magazines

New Zealanders sure do love a lift-out. Gaining over 40,000 readers each in 2015 were Saturday lifestyle glossy Canvas (up 13.1% to 371,000 readers) and Monday food title Bite (up 19.0% to 257,000 readers), while Sunday Magazine also grew (up 9.7% to 328,000).

Magazines

Some of the big became even bigger in 2015: AA Directions, the country’s most-read magazine overall, grew 8.6% to 554,000 readers per average issue, and NZ Woman’s Day remains the most popular title on newsstands (up 5.2% to 406,000). Also making solid year-on-year gains were the Australian Women’s Weekly’s NZ edition (up 8.0% to 269,000), NZ Listener (up 35.4% to 264,000), Air New Zealand’s inflight publication KiaOra (up 13.4% to 178,000), Mindfood (up 25.6% to 147,000), Rural News (up 38.2% to 123,000) and North & South (up 5.3% to 120,000).

View the full Print Readership tables for December 2015

John La Rosa, General Manager Client Services – New Zealand, Roy Morgan Research, says:

“Many of New Zealand’s newspapers and magazines continue to perform relatively well against equivalent print media in Australia and around the world.

“A number of already-popular magazines have increased their readership, from a range of categories including the Mass Women’s and Women’s Lifestyle, Motoring, General Interest, Farming, and Home and Garden.

“Newspaper Inserted Magazines in particular are going great guns, growing or maintaining readership even, in some cases, as their parent newspapers face declines. This suggests that the strength of the medium in 2016 and beyond will be delivering content that isn’t time-sensitive, and is designed to be enjoyed in print on a lounge or in a café, not via device while waiting for the lift to arrive. And it’s exactly this sort of captive, comfortable audience that can provide the best ROI to print advertisers.”

ENDS

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Roy Morgan Research

New Zealand's leading social and market research company

A full service research organisation specialising in omnibus and syndicated data, Roy Morgan Research has over 70 years' experience in collecting objective, independent information on consumers. Roy Morgan Research was set up in New Zealand in the 1990s and has been collecting information across a wide range of industries in New Zealand ever since. Roy Morgan currently has over 10 years of trended data on a geographically and demographically representative sample of over 12,000 New Zealanders aged 14+.

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