Over 3 million New Zealanders read newspapers in 2019

Top 10 Newspapers – Total Cross-Platform Audience (Print & Online)

Publication	Print		Digital (web or app)		Total Cross-Platform Audience* (print, web or app)
	June 2018	June 2019	June 2018	June 2019	June 2018	June 2019	% Change
	‘000s	‘000s	‘000s	‘000s	‘000s	‘000s	%
New Zealand Herald	775	782	1,475	1,545	1,806	1,885	4.4%
Dominion Post	293	297	293	309	500	485	-3.0%
The Press	263	227	186	189	364	344	-5.5%
Sunday Star Times	337	265	84	63	402	309	-23.1%
Waikato Times	123	145	114	140	203	250	23.2%
Otago Daily Times	151	138	119	153	222	238	7.2%
Bay of Plenty Times	90	83	98	120	157	172	9.6%
Hawke’s Bay Today	81	88	50	85	117	146	24.8%
Southland Times	59	75	43	63	86	121	40.7%
Northern Advocate	77	63	68	77	124	118	-4.8%

Full Newspaper Readership Results available to view here.
*Cross-Platform Audience is the number of New Zealanders who have read or accessed individual newspaper content via print or online. Print is net readership in an average 7 days. Online is net readership online in an average 7 days.

New Zealand Taste soars into the Top 15 magazines for the first time

New Zealand’s most widely read magazine remains driving magazine AA Directions - now with an average issue readership of 485,000 New Zealanders ahead of New Zealand Woman’s Day on a readership of 274,000, New Zealand Listener on 231,000 and the TV Guide on 205,000.

However, the stand-out improver over the last 12 months was New Zealand Taste which grew its print readership by an impressive 35,000 to 89,000 and became one of New Zealand’s top 15 most widely read magazines for the first time.

Another magazine to perform strongly is the real estate focused Property Press which grew its readership by 47,000 to 138,000 and is now the eighth most widely read magazine. NZ Gardener also increased its readership by 5,000 to 111,000.

Other magazines to perform strongly over the past year include Your Home & Garden which increased readership by 7,000 to 81,000, Metro which was up 5,000 to a readership of 57,000, New Zealand Fashion Quarterly which was up 10,000 to 48,000 and Simply You which was up 3,000 to 31,000.

New Zealand’s Top 15 Magazines by Average Issue Print Readership

Publication	June 2018	June 2019	% Reach Change
	‘000s	‘000s	%
AA Directions*	538	485	-1.6%
NZ Woman’s Day*	309	274	-1.0%
New Zealand Listener*	268	231	-1.1%
TV Guide*	224	205	-0.5%
Australian Women’s Weekly (NZ Edition)*	222	200	-0.7%
SkyWatch*	156	146	-0.3%
NZ Woman’s Weekly*	164	140	-0.7%
Property Press*	91	138	1.2%
NZ House & Garden*	149	128	-0.6%
Kia Ora (Air NZ)	159	112	-1.3%
NZ Gardener*	106	111	0.1%
Mindfood*	110	109	-0.1%
Cuisine	128	103	-0.7%
North & South*	108	102	-0.2%
New Zealand Taste	54	89	0.8%

Full Readership Results for over 90 New Zealand Magazines available to view here.
*Roy Morgan has measured additional readership for this magazine via Cross-Platform Audiences – see next section. **NZ House & Garden (+5,000) increased their average issue readership but not enough to grow their reach of population which kept pace with population growth.

Property Press leads cross-platform* audience growth – up over 40% on a year ago

Property Press increased its total cross-platform audience by 47,000, or 43.1%, to 156,000 in the 12 months to June 2019. Another magazine to increase its cross-platform audience, although outside the top 10, was the National Business Review which grew its total cross-platform audience by 11,000, up 13.9%, to 90,000.

Despite the impressive increase for Property Press it is motoring magazine AA Directions which is easily New Zealand’s most widely read magazine with a market-leading total cross-platform audience of 542,000.

Other leading magazines with strong cross-platform audiences include NZ Woman’s Day with an audience of 324,000, New Zealand Listener on 257,000, Australian Women’s Weekly NZ Edition on 232,000, TV Guide Magazine on 231,000 and NZ Woman’s Weekly with an audience of 208,000.
*Cross-platform audience is the number of New Zealanders who have read or accessed individual magazine content via print or online. Print is average issue readership; digital is website visitation in an average 4 weeks (New Zealand House & Garden), except for weekly titles which are in an average 7 days (New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, New Zealand Woman’s Day, New Zealand Listener and National Business Review).

Weekend (North Island) and Viva (North Island) both increase readership

Only two leading newspaper inserted magazines managed to increase their readership over the last year. Weekend (North Island) increased its readership by 3,000 to 241,000 to be the second most widely read newspaper inserted magazine and Viva (North Island) grew their readership by 5,000 to 195,000.

However, despite the increases for both Weekend and Viva it is again the Weekend New Zealand Herald newspaper inserted magazine Canvas with an average issue readership of 298,000 that leads the field.

Behind the two market leaders are Sunday Magazine on 227,000, Your Weekend on 195,000 and Bite (North Island) on 193,000.

New Zealand’s Top 5 Newspaper Inserted Magazines by Print Readership

Publication	June 2018	June 2019	% Reach Change
	‘000s	‘000s	%
Canvas (North Island)	315	298	-0.6%
Weekend (North Island)	238	241	0.0%*
Sunday Magazine	268	227	-1.2%
Viva (North Island)	190	195	0.0%*
Your Weekend	221	195	-0.8%
Bite (North Island)	207	193	-0.4%

*Both Weekend (North Island) and Viva (North Island) grew their average issue readership but this meant their readership reach of population stayed the same as the New Zealand population increased over the last 12 months.

Michele Levine, Chief Executive Officer, Roy Morgan, says:

“The latest Roy Morgan readership figures for New Zealand show continued strong growth in cross-platform audiences for many of New Zealand’s leading newspapers. Six out of the top ten and 11 out of the top 20 newspapers grew their cross-platform audience over the last year.

“Over 3 million New Zealanders now read or access newspapers in an average 7 day period via print or online (website or app) equivalent to over three-quarters of New Zealanders. Leading the way is the New Zealand Herald with a cross-platform audience of over 1.88 million, up by an impressive 79,000 (+4.4%) on a year ago.

“The growing Herald has been joined by impressive increases at other leading newspapers including the Southland Times (+40.7%), Hawke’s Bay Today (+24.8%), Waikato Times (+23.2%), Bay of Plenty Times (+9.6%) and Otago Daily Times (+7.2%) all growing their cross-platform audiences significantly over the last year.

“In addition to a bright year for many newspapers there have been several good performances with magazine readership compared to a year ago. Now over 2.1 million New Zealanders (53.9%) now read magazines whether in print or online a huge and valuable audience that advertisers can reach via established and well-known brands.

“New Zealand Taste magazine has been a standout performer increasing its readership by 35,000 to 89,000 compared to a year ago and becoming one of New Zealand’s top 15 most widely read magazines in the process for the first time.

“Other magazines to perform well include Property Press which grew its readership by 47,000 to 138,000, NZ Gardener up 5,000 to 111,000, Your Home & Garden up 7,000 to 81,000, Metro up 5,000 to 57,000, New Zealand Fashion Quarterly up 10,000 to 48,000 and Simply You which was up 3,000 to 31,000.”

For comments or more information please contact:
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