APN Starts the Year on Several High Notes

APN is hitting the ground running in 2011 with strong results in both readership and circulation for its portfolio of newspaper, online and magazine brands.

APN’s three major publishing titles – The New Zealand Herald, Herald on Sunday and the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly – have all achieved strong readership gains over the last 12 months at the same time as the Herald’s website, www.nzherald.co.nz, has recorded significant growth in its average weekly domestic audience.

The Herald and Herald on Sunday are the only paid newspapers in New Zealand to record increases in circulation, while the Woman’s Weekly has maintained circulation against a weaker weekly magazine category trend.

APN’s brand portfolio gives the company unrivalled reach into the important Auckland market. Overall 80% of Aucklanders will connect with at least one of the APN brands over a week and the higher the income of the household, the stronger the reach of APN brands.
Martin Simons, CEO of APN’s New Zealand media business said, these results are an exciting way to launch into 2011.

“The strength of APN’s brand portfolio performance gives us an extremely positive starting position for 2011.”

Readership results, released by Nielsen today, cover the 12-month period ending December, 2010. Print circulation results are also released by the Audit Bureau of Circulation today and cover the 6 months ending 31 December 2010

HERALD READERSHIP AT RECORD LEVELS:
The New Zealand Herald has increased its readership base by 39,000 to reach 599,000 readers on a typical day. This result for the Herald is the highest readership recorded, for the same twelve month period, in seven years and is the fourth highest recorded over the last 20 years. The newspaper has also achieved an average net circulation of 170,677 and is the only daily newspaper to record an increase in circulation in the country.

The Herald continues to go from strength to strength as a multi media news brand. The daily brand audience of the Herald print publication and its website, www.nzherald.co.nz, has grown by an impressive 88,000 to 768,000. Over a week the Herald brand connects with 1.3 million New Zealanders, an increase of 116,000 over the last 12 months.

HERALD ON SUNDAY GROWS FASTER: The newspaper with the largest circulation growth in New Zealand was the Herald on Sunday adding a significant 5,801 copies, taking its circulation base to 96,069. Readership has also increased with the paper now reaching 379,000 readers – an increase of 8,000 on the same 12 months last year.

NZ WOMEN’S WEEKLY LEADS MAGAZINES: New Zealand’s leading weekly magazine, the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly also achieved a strong readership gain of 39,000 readers, lifting total readership to 834,000. The magazine’s circulation remained stable at 80,439 – a performance second only to its latest stable mate, New Idea. This was a particularly strong performance given the circulation declines of other major weekly woman’s titles.

WEBSITE AUDIENCE CONTINUES TO BUILD: After relaunching with a major re-design in the last quarter of 2010 the Herald website, www.nzherald.co.nz, increased its average weekly domestic audience by a significant 34% on quarter four of 2010 to 807,000. Other highlights achieved by the site include a 71% increase in viewed online video with 109,000 unique browsers a week. And as a truly multimedia brand, visitors to the nzherald mobile site increased by 267% to 73,000 unique browsers a week, and by the end of 2010 there were 10,000 iPad users accessing the application each week.

UNRIVALED AUCKLAND REACH: Commenting on the fact that APN’s brand portfolio reach in the Auckland market is unrivalled, Martin Simons said:
“At APN we work hard to build media brands that continue to be relevant and compelling for New Zealanders. These results prove that we continue to succeed in the development of quality brands that deliver quality audiences for our advertisers.”

He thanked the APN content teams which had covered all the major stories superbly well, and readers for their continued loyalty and support

Summary results by brand:
The latest results once again cement the Herald’s position as New Zealand’s leading newspaper brand. With more than twice as many readers than any other daily newspaper and more readers than any other newspaper across every edition, the paper dominates the New Zealand market. Readership growth has increased over each edition of the Herald with both the Wednesday edition and New Zealand’s leading newspaper, The Weekend Herald reaching well over 600,000 readers.

The Herald’s portfolio of inserted magazines also performed extremely well with all titles increasing readership over the last 12 months. The largest gains were made by TimeOut, published in the Thursday edition, which added 60,000 readers to 425,000 and The Business Herald, published on Friday and adding 48,000 readers. The Business Herald now has six times the readers of any other weekly business magazine in New Zealand.

The Weekend Herald, re-launched with a major re-design and new content in the second half of 2010, now reaches 650,000 readers, a year-on-year increase of 37,000. The paper has 117,000 more readers than any other weekend newspaper in the country.

The Herald on Sunday with a total readership of 379,000 continues to lead the Sunday newspaper market in its core circulation area north of Taupo. Readership in the Northern region has increased by 9,000 to 347,000 while in Auckland an extra 20,000 readers now read the paper. The Herald on
Sunday is the only Sunday newspaper to achieve an increase in readers on a like with like comparison over the 12 months.

APN’s Regional Newspapers have also recorded a positive performance over the last year. The APN portfolio of regional newspapers now reaches an additional 9,000 readers. Results were particularly strong for APN’s largest regional newspaper, Hawke’s Bay Today attracting an additional 6,000 readers to reach 59,000. The Bay of Plenty Times now reaches 43,000 readers while the Northern Advocate has grown by 3,000 to a total of 37,000.

New Zealand Magazines show strong gains
The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly leads the mass consumer market with the highest readership in both the competitive weekly woman’s magazine category and as New Zealand’s leading newsstand magazine. Strong sales performances were also turned in by New Idea, the New Zealand Listener, Creme, Girlfriend and Simply You. New Idea increased circulation by 0.8% to 50,563, The Listener jumped 1,398 copies to 63,930, Creme lifted sales by 3.4% to 20,997, Girlfriend maintained circulation at 19,708 and Simply You increased its circulation by 1.3% to 35,118.

The Woman’s Weekly gained the biggest increase in readers for the company, up 39,000 or 5% to 834,000 closely followed by new stable mate, That’s Life, with a significant readership gain of 32,000 or 12%. New Idea maintained readership at 462,000 and the Listener recorded a readership of 269,000.

“We are thrilled with our magazine performance” Mr Simons said.
“With a wide range of product developments in the pipeline, a great kick start in significant news events and the prospect of a rugby world cup and national election, we have high expectations for the 12 months ahead.”

ENDS

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