New Zealand Herald Readership Continues Strong Growth

The New Zealand Herald Readership Continues Strong Growth

Herald on Sunday remains the most-read Sunday Newspaper in New Zealand

7 September 2017 – The New Zealand Herald’s brand audience has risen for the sixth consecutive survey period, with both print readership and digital audiences continuing to grow, according to the latest Nielsen survey.

The Herald has seen strong year on year print readership growth, up 4,000 readers to 430,000. Weekly readership has also increased by 9,000 to 786,000 readers year on year.

The Weekend Herald readership has continued its upward growth trend, and had its biggest growth year on year, up 44,000 readers to 490,000.

The Herald on Sunday remains the most-read Sunday Newspaper in New Zealand, and saw an increase of 2,000 readers from the previous period, which brings total readers since the previous year to 29,000. Its readership now sits at 337,000*. It is still the highest-selling Sunday newspaper in New Zealand, with a weekly circulation of 84,360.^^^

Many of the Herald’s popular inserted magazines also have an increase in readership from the previous period. TuesdayTravel readers have increased by 5,000 to 266,000; Weekend has seen 4,000 more readers, bringing its readership to 284,000; and foodies are enjoying Bite, up 1,000 readers to 203,000.* Canvas is the best read inserted magazine, reaching 286,000 readers each Saturday.

Debuting for the first time in the Readership survey, Sunday Travel has reached an audience of 201,000 readers. When combined with Travel on Tuesday, NZME Travel in print reaches 346,000 people a week.*

Miriyana Alexander, Weekend Editor, says the rise in readership numbers is a testament to the compelling content being produced by NZME’s talented journalists, and their continued focus on exclusive and investigative journalism.

“Not only is the Herald team breaking big news and keeping New Zealanders up to date with topical coverage on events such as Team NZ’s brilliant America’s Cup win, the Lions tour and the election, we are driving in-depth and investigative stories to bring important issues to light. Break the Silence, our series on suicide, has had a positive response from New Zealanders.

“These results are fantastic, and to see our readership continue the upward trend across consecutive surveys is outstanding and a testament to the teams in our newsrooms across New Zealand. We are delighted our content is resonating with our audience.”

Multiple regional titles also saw growth in readership since the previous period; The Wanganui Chronicle readership is up 1,000 to 26,000; Hawke’s Bay Today saw a growth of 2,000 readers to 46,000; and Rotorua Daily Post increased readership to 21,000, up 3,000.*

The Herald daily brand audience across print and online readership is up 17.6% year on year, to a total audience of 988,000. The weekly brand audience has also seen a rise, up 13.1% to reach a total of 1,550,000 people.*

nzherald.co.nz now reaches an audience of 1.84 million New Zealanders each month^^. Traffic has increased 32% since this period in 2016. There were 3.5 million average weekly unique browsers visiting the website in August 2017^. The new site was launched in June this year. NZ Herald Focus, which lives on nzherald.co.nz, receives on average over 1.8 million views across NZME’s native and social platforms a week. Native video streams have grown 101% year on year, driven by the significant growth from NZ Herald Focus.**

In August, the NZ Herald Facebook page reached almost 10 million users and received over 33 million engagements, an average engagement rate of 3.3%.+

NZME Acting Chief Commercial Officer Matt Headland says the Herald’s increased readership shows the multi-platform offering is what readers expect and what advertisers need to effectively target their audience.

“The Herald is tracking strongly. NZME is continuing to expand its digital channels to work alongside print; The recent launch of the new nzherald.co.nz site will continue to strengthen the power of NZME journalism, while NZ Herald Focus and Local Focus add another element to our news stories the audience can engage with.

“Across regional print and online publications, radio platforms and The Herald, we are able to offer advertisers formidable reach through a variety of channels, allowing audiences to engage with content when, where and how they like it, in the medium most suited to them.”

The NZ Herald team has had a terrific awards run this year; NZME collected Website of the Year (nzherald.co.nz), Newspaper of the Year and Best Weekly Newspaper (The Weekend Herald), and Best Daily Newspaper over 30,000 (NZ Herald), amongst other awards at the 2017 Canon awards.

NZME had a further win at last night’s PANPA awards. Stephen Parker from the Rotorua Daily Post won the Sport, Regional category in the Photography section, with his image of para swimmer Siobhan Terry.

These great results across results and awards confirm NZME’s story-telling is world class across every platform.

Sources

*Nielsen CMI Q3 2016 – Q2 2017, AP15+

+Facebook Business Manager Insights 07/08/17 – 03/09/17

^Nielsen Market Intelligence, Average Weekly Unique Browsers, Domestic Traffic. Aug 2017 (v Aug 2016)

^^Nielsen Online Ratings July 2017 vs July 2016

^^^Audit Bureau of Circulation, 12 months to 30 June 2017. HoS circulation has experienced a decline of 2% vs the previous period.

**Brightcove Analytics January 2016 – June 2017. Native = viewed on an NZME platform.

ENDS

About NZME

NZME is one of New Zealand’s leading media and entertainment businesses with its brands connecting with 3.3 million kiwis[1]. Whether reading, listening, watching or engaging with NZME brands, they can get the content they want - where and when they want it. NZME is listed on the NZX Main Board with a foreign exempt listing on the ASX.

www.nzme.co.nz

Source:

[1] Nielsen CMI, May 2017 fused database: Q2 2016-Q1 2017 (based on population 10 years +). Based on unduplicated weekly reach of NZME newspapers, radio stations, and monthly domestic unique audience of NZME’s digital channels.

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