The latest National Readership Survey is out!

The latest National Readership Survey conducted by Nielsen was officially released last Friday. There were some obvious winners and unfortunately plenty of losers. One thing was certain, the results offered compelling insights into how our consumers were behaving.

Be my guest.
Entertaining guests from home are becoming more frequent where long lunches and fancy dinners are now merely treats on the side. As pockets tighten so does our food palette. On the bright side, our strive to rekindle the joys of cooking is eminent with foodie titles experiencing pivotal growth. Titles such as Cuisine is up by 4% and the Healthy Food Guide with a staggering increase of 14% year on year.

DIY is in our blood.
It’s what Kiwi’s do in their spare time. Whether it’s extending the deck or cultivating the vege gardens, weekends are always brimming with projects and round trips to your local. Hence it’s no surprise that the DIY & gardening genres are undergoing a well earned readership increase. NZ Gardener was up by 20% in readers while Your Home & Garden held strong with a 8.9% rise.

We’re being picky.
Gone are the days when POS stands caught every shoppers attention, to be honest it still does – it just needs to work three times as hard. We’re choosing our weekly gossip fixes wisely, we can no longer splurge like we use to. If Bradgelina isn’t adopting another kid or Tom making Katie cry, then we don’t care. It’s these harsh realities that we’re seeing the women’s weeklies taking the hardest hit with Woman’s Day and NZ Woman’s Weekly dropping 11% respectively and New Idea down by 9.5%. Even the TV Guide is showing worst for wear dropping 17% in readers.

Supporting our Communities.
Overall, community newspapers are standing strong and delivering on local content. These free publications are receiving well deserved respect with an average growth of 2%. Specific regions of interest are Wellington with an average of 5% increase and Christchurch with a healthy average increase of 8%. Auckland and Hamilton remain steady. The national paper Sunday Star Times lost significant numbers in Auckland and Dunedin by 10% and 33% respectively however gaining ground in all other regions. Overall Sunday readership in Auckland has declined by 9% - could well be the DIY projects!

Other key trends emerging:

• Techy titles such as PC World and NetGuide have suffered a hard blow (15% and 23% drop respectively), this would reflect our reliance to research over the net rather than via hardcover.

• Either NZ couples are opting for a longer engagement, not getting married or it’s all about hand me downs – whatever the scenario, wedding mags are not relishing in growth. NZ Weddings is down by 16% whilst Bride & Groom has fallen by 9%.

So what can we take out of this? Well having a clear understanding of these dynamics and insights can really help define the way we work with our clients & publishers. It’s about collaboration to amplify these trends and make it work in our favour.

Pauline So, Client Service Manager - Carat New Zealand