NZ Herald Readership Growth Continues As Kiwis Soak Up Weekend Titles

The New Zealand Herald, its magazines and the Herald on Sunday have all increased readership in the past 12 months, highlighting Kiwis’ love affair with print.

The Herald on Sunday continues to be the standout Sunday paper of choice for New Zealanders with a 4% growth in readership, according to Nielsen data released today - 325,000 New Zealanders read the paper each weekend, up 12,000 readers on 2018.

And the NZ Herald is up to 455,000 readers a day – 2000 more than a year ago – while overall weekly brand audience is at 1.632 million.

All of the NZ Herald magazines have enjoyed year-on-year growth.

Travel magazine leads the charge with 371,000 readers – up a staggering 87,000 readers (31%) year-on-year.

“New Zealanders are hungry for quality, trusted journalism, and our newspapers and magazines are providing this every day,” says NZME managing editor Shayne Currie.

“Our readers are hugely engaged and spending many hours luxuriating in the news and feature reads served up by our portfolio of newspapers and magazines.

“Furthermore, the Weekend Herald and Herald on Sunday attract 588,000 readers - a great reflection of the depth and breadth of the great content in our weekend papers,” says Currie.

“Our Tuesday Travel continues to delight an increasing number of New Zealanders. Our new-look Canvas magazine now reaches nearly 340,000. Time Out, Viva, Spy and Sunday Travel are all up too. These magazines are the perfect place for advertisers to reach engaged and motivated audiences,” says Currie.

A study of readership levels over a 5-year period highlights the ongoing strength of print media.

“While much has been made of the fragmentation in the media industry with the ever-increasing number of places for Kiwis to go for news and entertainment, print has remained strong. The NZ Herald has more readers today than it did 5 years ago,” says NZME CEO Michael Boggs.

NZH average issue readership today of 455,000 is up 14,000 (3.2%) readers vs Jan-Dec 2014, while weekly coverage of 857,000 is up 69,000 (8.8%) vs Jan-Dec 2014.

“It all comes down to trust. We’ve continued to invest in quality journalism and storytelling and our readers reward us with their loyalty. In an age where it can be difficult at times to know where news is coming from, readers of the New Zealand Herald know exactly where we are,” says Boggs.

“And that’s especially so in the locations where we have local newspapers that are a significant part of the local community and culture. Across a week, New Zealand Media and Entertainment’s daily newspapers - the NZ Herald, Northern Advocate, Bay of Plenty Times, Rotorua Daily Post, Whanganui Chronicle and Hawke’s Bay Today - reach 1,013,000 million Kiwis.”

Two of NZME’s local daily newspapers have registered good readership increases. Bay of Plenty Times has gained 3,000 readers year on year and is also up 2,000 readers versus the previous period. Its readership is now 29,000. Whanganui Chronicle has gained readers year on year. It now has a readership of 18,000, up 3,000 year on year.

This week NZME also revealed that more than 46,000 New Zealanders are accessing its Premium digital content offering. This includes more than 21,000 with paid subscriptions (in addition to the 25,000 who have activated Premium as part of their print subscription bundle).

“The success of Premium highlights how much New Zealanders value high-quality journalism and how much confidence they have in our journalists, editors and storytellers to deliver news they can trust,” said Mr Boggs.

Yesterday, the New Zealand Herald released a brand-new App which gives readers their news, their way on the go.

The new App, available in app stores now, lets users choose to receive news alerts by location and topic of interest. App users can also choose the location for their weather forecast, pick their preferred screen layout and font size. The clean new design offers easier navigation to find the likes of Premium, the daily quiz, videos and other special features.

“So many of our readers are accessing our journalism on the go - so a great App is as important as our award-winning papers, web and mobile sites,” says NZ Herald Editor Murray Kirkness.

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