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:

1. The Press up 4.5% from 223,000 to 233,000
2. NZ Herald up 3.0% from 568,000 to 585,000
3. Waikato Times up 1.1% from 94,000 to 95,000
4. ODT down 3.6% from 111,000 to 107,000
5. Dom Post down 3.6% from 253,000 to 244,000

And for the three Sunday newspapers:

1. Herald on Sunday up 5.8% from 326,000 to 345,000
2. Sunday Star-Times down 2.9% from 577,000 to 560,000
3. Sunday News down 11.2% from 376,000 to 334,000

And looking at some of the magazines:

1. National Business Review up 12.0% from 92,000 to 104,000
2. The Listener up 3.9% from 284,000 to 295,000
3. Computerworld up 2.8% from 36,000 to 37,000
4. Investigate down 1.5% from 68,000 to 67,000
5. North & South down 2.4% from 297,000 to 290,000
6. Independent Financial Review down 13.9% from 36,000 to 31,000
7. Metro down 16.4% from 152,000 to 127,000
8. 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.