Ratings confirm Aucklander’s star status

Ratings confirm Aucklander’s star status

It’s been a huge first year for community magazine The Aucklander with the weekly achieving the highest readership in its market after only 16 months.

A big winner at this year’s community paper awards and voted best community paper by Metro readers, the community magazine has now backed these accolades with a top performance first up in the Nielsen Media Research ratings.

Described by APN NZ as a community publication in a magazine format, The Aucklander was launched in September 2003 and is published in six editions.

The latest Nielsen annual ratings to December 2004 are the first for the paper and the results back the decision by APN to go for a totally new concept in the community paper market.

The Aucklander has a total readership of 462,000 of all people aged 10 and older. The figure equates to 45 per cent of Aucklanders reading the paper each week.

APN’s Chris Brown, publisher, says the big news for advertisers is the complementary readership of The Aucklander and the NZ Herald.

“On average, one ad in the NZ Herald and the six editions of The Aucklander enables an advertiser to reach two thirds of the Auckland population. Plus, penetration for the two titles across key consumer groups is extremely strong.”

Mr Brown says the ability to reach this many readers using only six weekly editions, compared to its competition’s 22, provides a very attractive proposition for advertisers.

The Nielsen figures show The Aucklander has a strong position with the household shopper.

Mr Brown says 75 per cent of The Aucklander readers are household shoppers, 50 per cent are the main household shopper and 40 per cent are the main household shopper with children younger than 17 in the home.

“Plus, our readers are younger with more than two-thirds aged between 20 and 54 years. This is a break through in this market as most community newspapers skew towards the older reader,” Mr Brown says.

The Nielsen figures back a strong 2004 performance by The Aucklander’s editorial staff in the NZ Community Newspapers Association annual awards.

Accolades for reporters include Adrienne Kohler’s Best Young Journalist of the Year and Angela Lawn’s third placing in the same category. Sandra Conchie was the third place-getter in the Best Journalist of the Year.

The Aucklander took out first placing in the Best Front Page section of the awards, recognising the work of photographers Amos Chapple and Brad Ambrose along with graphic artist Amy MacKinnon.

The Aucklander also took out second placing in the Community Involvement award.

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