New Media Insights on the Rural Sector

New Media Insights on the Rural Sector

Auckland, New Zealand (28 September 2012) - Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy, have released results of the Nielsen Rural Survey. The survey, produced in association with key rural publishers, provides insights of readership and media use by rural consumers and brings a rural facet to the existing readership currency in the media market.

Kate Terry, Director of Consumer and Media Insights at Nielsen, states: “As a country with a rural heritage we’ve had theories about how the farming community use media but we now have the necessary data to both prove and dispel these hypotheses.”

Rural newspapers and magazines are the preferred media for finding new information with 81 percent of farmers saying that rural publications are best to find out what is new. Daily newspapers are the next most preferred medium for farmers to find out about what is new (53%), followed by television (45%).

Weekly rural titles are reaching 76 percent of New Zealand farmers. National dairy titles are read by 67 percent of large dairy farms.

When engaging with rural newspapers and magazines, a significant 91 percent of farmers say the publications help them find the latest products and services. Rural newspapers and magazines are rated ahead of all other media when searching for information and advice when purchasing products such as real estate, farm supplies, machinery and equipment.

There are significant peaks during the day when farmers read newspapers and magazine in comparison to non-rural national households. Spikes in readership occur between midday and four o’clock and again between six and eight o’clock in the evening for both rural and daily publications.

Terry suggests: “Running a farm requires working outside usual nine to five hours. Having this understanding about behaviours and when different media is used throughout the day provides an opportunity for media and agencies to tailor services to the rural sector.”

About the Nielsen Rural Survey
The Nielsen Rural Survey captures readership and media insights across the rural sector including beef, sheep, dairy, livestock, crop and horticulture farms. The survey employed a mixed methodology of mail and online with a sample of over 2,000 respondents. The data is weighted to Statistics NZ by farm size by type to represent over 46,000 farms nationwide.

About Nielsen
Nielsen Holdings N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and related properties. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA and Diemen, the Netherlands. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

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