Some welcome good news on newspaper front…not for all

It is too early to put money on it, but there are signs New Zealand metropolitan newspaper readership may be stabilising.

The latest Nielsen survey shows most metropolitan newspapers have held their own year-on-year and some have actually improved their numbers. The outlier is the largest of our newspapers, The New Zealand Herald, which has dropped 10,000 readers to now stand at 503,000.

The most impressive performer is The Post. The capital’s daily has increased readership by almost as much as the Herald dropped – up over nine per cent from 93,000 to 112,000. Its Stuff stablemate, the Waikato Times has been even more impressive in percentage terms. Its readership grew by more than 12 per cent to stand at 55,000. The Press in Christchurch (90,000) and the Otago Daily Times (87,000) were relatively stable year-on-year, although both experienced small declines from the previous quarter.

The weekly coverage by all metro dailies is up 36,000 to 1.55 million.

In the Sunday market, the Herald on Sunday dropped 3000 year-on-year to stand at 308,000 readers. However, Stuff will be pleased with the Sunday Star Times which upped its numbers from 178,000 to 191,000 (a 7.3 per cent rise). Overall, therefore, the Sunday readership is also improving.

Remember, these are readers of the respective newspapers and does not include the digital audience that I will come to shortly. The Nielsen figures measure the number of people who read [Newspaper] in the issue period. They show there is yet life in print editions, although we must not get carried away by the smell of newsprint and printing ink.

The picture is not so reassuring for the regional press. Nielsen only releases aggregated totals in its topline survey results, but the signs suggest continuing decline. Regional newspapers dropped 33,000 readers year-on-year – more than 14 per cent – to now stand at a total of 200,000. That total excludes the Waikato Times which, given the population of Hamilton, is rightly considered a metro.

That sort of decline must push some regional titled further into the twilight zone that precedes closure, and adds weight to the belief that we are on the brink experiencing the sort of news deserts already seen in Australia, North America, the United Kingdom and Europe.

The publishers themselves are increasingly relying on consolidated print plus digital audience numbers to boost perceptions of how well they are doing. These numbers are useful guides to overall audience but in commercial terms need to be viewed through a polarised lens.

Print advertising yields remain higher than those for digital advertising, which is also hostage to the dictates of the transnational platforms and search engines. It is in the interests of publishers – at least in the short to medium term – to nurture their print editions.

Nonetheless, the numbers show our newspaper publishers are reaching significant audiences utilising both media, It would be helpful, however, if the two main groups employed a single statistical audience measure. Their respective chest thumping employs its own (and different) yardstick.

Stuff will tell you that it has a monthly print and digital audience of 1.5 million, up by 26 per cent over last year.

 NZME, on the other hand, will tell you it has a weekly brand (the Herald) audience of 2.37 million.

It was pleasing, therefore, to see the Herald’s Media Insider, Shayne Currie, ride to the rescue last Friday with a set of common measures. He told readers that Nielsen’s monthly numbers showed stuff.co.nz has a unique audience of 2.23 million, and nzherald.co.nz 1.96 million. He added rnz.co.nz (1.698 million) and 1news.co.nz (803,000). By that measure Stuff has maintained an overall lead it has enjoyed for a number of years.

The Media Insider story did not, however, offer the year-on-year print readership of the Herald outlined above. The 10,000 reader decline must surely concern NZME when it was contrary to upward trends by Stuff’s North Island metro titles.

The publication to watch is The Post. Under Tracy Watkin’s editorship it has grown in stature and audience. In the wake of last week’s numbers, Stuff’s Masthead Publishing managing director, Joanna Norris, threw down the gauntlet to NZME.

“The Post’s national focus on the intersection of power, politics and business is behind its remarkable audience growth, which is increasingly seen in Auckland,” she said. She added that The Post has strengthened its Auckland reporting team recently, including appointing investigations specialist Steve Kilgallon as Auckland Editor.

If The Post and the Herald go head-to-head, it will be online. The logistics of print distribution effectively rules out the mastheads fighting for your attention in Auckland supermarkets. Nonetheless, the capital’s daily has the digital capacity to further erode the Herald’s readership. They are different publications: The Post online adopts a more traditional approach to its news selection than the Herald’s increasing algorithmic and AI-driven platform. It will be interesting to observe whether nzherald.co.nz reassesses its news values in the face of a challenge from the south.

Stuff had a hesitant and somewhat messy introduction to the world of paywalls, in contrast to focussed and resolute digital subscription strategy that Miriyana Alexander championed at the New Zealand Herald. However, Stuff’s strategy is now bedded in and digital subscriptions to its daily publications grew by 57 per cent in the past year.

Alexander left her role as the Herald’s Head of Premium but has been brought back as the chair of NZME’s Editorial Advisory Board. No doubt that board will be looking at the Nielsen numbers and considering what advice it might offer the Herald.

Good news…of a sort

Nielsen’s magazine readership survey results will be a rare bit of good news for Are Media’s owners. Last July they put their print magazines up for sale and two of their New Zealand titles now look like audience winners.

The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly has increased its readership by 34,000 year-on-year to sit at 434,000 and lead the country’s weekly magazine field. And the NZWW’s stablemate, the monthly Australian Women’s Weekly has increased its audience by an astonishing 89,000 since last year. It now has a monthly New Zealand readership of 388,000. Their other woman’s magazine Women’s Day remained basically steady on 341,000 while another New Zealand title in the stable, New Zealand Listener, has posted a modest 4000 rise (to 211,000).

Are Media is an Australasian publisher owned by private equity company Mercury Capital. The magazine business was purchased for less than $A50m from German group Bauer, which paid $A500m for the group in 2012.

After the sale was announced, The Australian’s Dataroom editor, Bridget Carter, wrote that the stable of magazines faces the prospect of collapse or closure if a buyer could not be found.

Last month a group of senior industry figures approach one of Australia’s richest men, iron ore magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest and asked him to bid. However, their proposal may call for sale of separate titles – the Australian Women’s Weekly is in their sights – and the New Zealand business does not even figure in Australian news reports.

That does not bode well.

It would be nothing short of tragic if uncaring Australians were responsible for the loss of two iconic New Zealand magazines that between them have a weekly readership of almost 650,000.