ABC audit confirms The New Zealand Herald position

ABC audit confirms The New Zealand Herald position

The New Zealand Herald continues to be the market leader, following the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) survey confirming its position as the country's biggest-selling newspaper.

The survey shows it has continued building its circulation growth for the October - March 2003 audit period.

The latest ABC figures released today for the New Zealand Herald have seen a net increase year-on-year for the October to March period from 210,841 to 210,910. The Otago Daily Times was the only other metropolitan daily newspaper to experience year-on-year growth within the audit period.

In this latest survey period, the Herald has maintained its share of total metropolitan newspaper circulation at 47% and continues to deliver more than twice the circulation of any other daily newspaper throughout the country.

The New Zealand Herald Chief Executive Officer, Ken Steinke, said: "This result is particularly pleasing given the amount of hard work a lot of people have put into the Herald in recent years.

"We saw some evidence of that hard work in exceptional readership growth during the last 12 months, where we topped one million readers per week.

"Our core objective remains to meet the needs of our readers and we'll continue to focus on that," he said.

Herald-Editor-in-Chief, Gavin Ellis, said the circulation result is built upon the news coverage and information provided by the Herald, particularly its coverage of major events like the Americas Cup and the Iraq War.

"We are now in a strong position of not only selling the most newspapers in New Zealand but, as recent figures show, of seeing our readership grow by an average of 41,000 a day. In fact in Auckland, seven out of ten people, over the age of 15, read the Herald every week," Mr Ellis said.

"We are looking to build on this performance with our investment in redesigning the layout of the weekday edition and the launch of Canvas, our full colour glossy magazine within the Weekend Herald." (2.)

"The weekend market in particular has recorded outstanding growth in readership for the Weekend Herald. In our primary markets of Auckland and the Northern region, we continue to attract twice as many readers, over the age of 15, as any other weekend publication," he said.

* The audited circulations figures are available at http://www.abc.org.nz/audit/index.html?org=npa

* Nielsen Media Research - National Readership Survey 2002/1 & 2003/1 all people 15+

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