The Roy Morgan newspaper and magazine readership numbers are out.
I created some charts to read the Magazine numbers better – so here they are. They show the differences between 2007/8 and 2008/9 readership numbers.
Click on the images for larger versions. Check out the Newspaper readership charts post as well.
It’s a sea of red.
Lance Wiggs 
Nothing all that surprising there really, disposable income is down, luxuries are first to be cut, the same info (and more) is normally available via the web…
One question I do have which is along the same theme, how do they work out the readership of a magazine? One magazine I currently subscribe to published their sales figures for the previous month, 24,000+ copies, that surprised me I always thought they sold way more copies per month than that, but then they said they have a readership of 10, meaning that on average ten people read each copy, that takes their readership up to 240,000 those figures are better (for selling ad space) BUT wait a minute ten people on average? How do you manage that? I’m a subscriber and I’m the only person that ever reads the copy I get, I then talked to three others who are also subscribers and no one else reads theirs either… To get the average up to ten I’m guessing some copies must be read by hundreds… The copy in the doctors surgery..?
I actually run a very successful website in the same niche as the magazine in question and I get around 20,000 visits (10,000 unique visitors) per month and cannot sell ad space, I now understand why, 20,000 eyes or 240,000 eyes… All sounds a bit fishy to me…
And interestingly, the Roy Morgan figures have the readership for the magazine in question down as 80,000+
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Interesting. Not everyone in NZ participates in the Roy Morgan survey (Idealog doesn’t, for example), but I think the results across the board would be similar. Healthy Food Guide is the runaway star: right product, right market, and a really strong marketing and circulation strategy.
Circulation promos can have a dramatic short-term effect. I’m surprised to see Trade & Exchange doing well.
It’s going to get worse, though, particularly for newspapers. Did you see this US chart?
http://www.theawl.com/2009/10/a-graphic-history-of-newspaper-circulation-over-the-last-two-decades
(@jason, I wouldn’t believe ten readers per issue either! A pass-on rate of two to three is more likely; our latest survey — run by an independent company — showed a pass-on rate of 3.7.)
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It’s great to see publications like Trends sitting strong. In this current economy it is a positive sign for the building and design industry still having a strong influence on New Zealand as a whole.
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Bike Rider Magazine isn’t in the mix…
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