New Zealand’s six leading magazines grow their readership
Roy Morgan readership results for New Zealand's print newspapers and magazines in 2017.
New Zealand’s six leading magazines grew their print audience in the year to December 2017 led by automotive magazine AA Directions - now with an impressive average issue readership of 565,000 New Zealanders and New Zealand Woman’s Day read by 353,000.
Other Top 15 New Zealand magazines to grow their average issue readership include TV Guide now on 251,000, Australians Women's Weekly (NZ Edition) on 249,000, New Zealand Listener on 246,000, New Zealand Woman's Weekly on 198,000, KiaOra (Air New Zealand’s in-flight magazine) on 148,000 and New Zealand House and Garden also on 148,000.
These are the latest findings from the Roy Morgan New Zealand Single Source survey of 6,409 New Zealanders aged 14+ over the 12 months to December 2017.
New Zealand’s Top 15 Magazines by Average Issue Print Readership
| Publication | 12m to Dec 2016 | 12m to Dec 2017 | % Reach Change |
| ‘000s | ‘000s | % | |
| AA Directions | 479 | 565 | 2.0% |
| NZ Woman’s Day* | 328 | 353 | 0.5% |
| TV Guide | 217 | 251 | 0.7% |
| Australian Women’s Weekly (NZ Edition) |
224 | 249 | 0.4% |
| NZ Listener* | 242 | 246 | 0%** |
| NZ Woman’s Weekly* | 171 | 198 | 0.5% |
| SkyWatch | 204 | 185 | -0.6% |
| Cuisine | 162 | 152 | -0.4% |
| KiaOra (Air NZ) | 127 | 148 | 0.4% |
| NZ House & Garden* | 141 | 148 | 0.1% |
| Mindfood | 124 | 129 | 0%** |
| NZ Gardener | 125 | 124 | -0.1% |
| Healthy Food Guide | 137 | 121 | -0.5% |
| Property Press | 151 | 114 | -1.0% |
| North & South | 133 | 111 | -0.6% |
*Roy Morgan has measured additional readership for this magazine via Cross-Platform Audiences – see next section. **Both NZ Listener (+4,000) and Mindfood (+5,000) increased their average issue readership but not enough to grow their reach of population which kept pace with population growth.
NZ Woman's Day & NZ Woman's Weekly lead cross-platform* growth
A number of New Zealand’s leading magazines have grown their cross-platform audience in the 12 months to December 2017 by increasing their print readership and/or website visitation.
New Zealand Woman’s Day has grown its cross-platform audience by 26,000, or 7.6%, to 367,000 in the year to December 2017 although rival New Zealand Woman’s Weekly has experienced the strongest growth in cross-platform audience, up 39,000, or 19.0%, to 244,000 and a significantly larger audience than the 198,000 who read the print version. Note – there is always some cross-over of readership between the two.
Other leading magazines to grow their cross-platform audience include New Zealand Listener up 5,000 to 258,000 and New Zealand House and Garden up 5,000 to 195,000.
*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 Woman’s Weekly and New Zealand House & Garden), except for weekly titles which are in an average 7 days (New Zealand Woman’s Day and New Zealand Listener).
New Zealand Herald tops print and online readership in 2017
The New Zealand Herald has ended 2017 as New Zealand’s most widely read publication in print and online with a total cross-platform readership of 1,598,000.
The New Zealand Herald, based in New Zealand's largest city of Auckland, has a readership more than three times as large as Wellington's Dominion Post on 462,000 and national weekly The Sunday Star Times with 405,000 readers.
Although the Herald has maintained a clear pole position amongst New Zealand's leading newspapers it was not one of the five that experienced the strongest total audience growth over the past year. Whangarei’s Northern Advocate experienced the largest year-on-year growth of 10.7% ahead of the Sunday Star Times (+8.9%), the Bay of Plenty Times (+8.4%), the Taranaki Daily News (+7.5%) and Christchurch's The Press (+5.9%).
Top 10 Newspapers – Total Cross-Platform Audience (Print & Online)
| Publication | Digital (web or app) |
Total Cross-Platform Audience* (print, web or app) |
|||||
| Dec 2016 |
Dec 2017 |
Dec 2016 |
Dec 2017 |
Dec 2016 |
Dec 2017 |
% Change | |
| ‘000s | ‘000s | ‘000s | ‘000s | ‘000s | ‘000s | % | |
| New Zealand Herald | 890 | 786 | 1,194 | 1,164 | 1,680 | 1,598 | -4.9% |
| Dominion Post | 328 | 306 | 242 | 236 | 485 | 462 | -4.7% |
| Sunday Star Times | 323 | 340 | 66 | 81 | 372 | 405 | 8.9% |
| The Press | 252 | 286 | 163 | 172 | 353 | 374 | 5.9% |
| Otago Daily Times | 146 | 139 | 88 | 89 | 203 | 192 | -5.4% |
| Waikato Times | 146 | 104 | 82 | 112 | 207 | 191 | -7.7% |
| Bay of Plenty Times | 87 | 91 | 70 | 91 | 143 | 155 | 8.4% |
| Northern Advocate | 66 | 70 | 58 | 69 | 112 | 124 | 10.7% |
| Taranaki Daily News | 77 | 66 | 55 | 67 | 106 | 114 | 7.5% |
| Hawkes Bay Today | 96 | 78 | 51 | 39 | 131 | 109 | -16.8% |
*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.
Sunday Magazine & Canvas are leading Newspaper Inserted Magazines
New Zealand’s leading newspaper inserted magazine is the Sunday Magazine included in the Sunday Star-Times with an average issue readership of 306,000 just ahead of Weekend New Zealand Herald newspaper inserted magazine Canvas on 302,000.
Behind these two market leaders are Weekend on 247,000, Your Weekend on 225,000 and rounding out the Top 5 is Bite on 211,000.
New Zealand’s Top 5 Newspaper Inserted Magazines by Print Readership
| Publication | 12m to Dec 2016 | 12m to Dec 2017 | % Reach Change |
| ‘000s | ‘000s | % | |
| Sunday Magazine | 250 | 306 | 1.2% |
| Canvas (North Island) | 306 | 302 | -0.3% |
| Weekend (North Island) | 253 | 247 | -0.3% |
| Your Weekend | 215 | 225 | 0.1% |
| Bite (North Island) | 245 | 211 | -1.0% |
John La Rosa, General Manager Client Services – Roy Morgan New Zealand, says:
“Roy Morgan provides New Zealand’s publishers, media agencies and advertisers with independent, comprehensive research into media consumption across print, internet, television, radio and cinema.
“Contrary to ‘conventional wisdom’ there is a future for print media, including magazines, and with the right integrated media strategy even traditional mastheads can grow and prosper in the challenging media environment of today.
“The latest Roy Morgan readership figures show nine of eleven of New Zealand’s leading magazines increased their readership over the year to December including titles across a variety of interests. Several of these titles also grew their total audience incorporating both print and online consumers.
“The New Zealand Herald which has a total cross-platform audience of nearly 1.6 million, including over 1.1 million via its website, has demonstrated it is possible for traditional print newspapers to carve out a significant online presence.
“In addition to The New Zealand Herald, several regional titles including the Northern Advocate, the Bay of Plenty Times, Taranaki Daily News and The Press have widened their reach over the past year by growing their cross-platform audience.
“New Zealand’s traditional publishers each face their own challenges migrating their audiences across to online media. The breadth of challenges facing the publishing industry makes it more important than ever to understand the demographics, lifestyle, attitudes, purchasing preferences, and cross-media habits of readers.”
To learn more about Roy Morgan’s Readership results for New Zealand, call (+61) (3) 9224 5309 or email askroymorgan@roymorgan.com
Related research findings
Download our latest profiles of New Zealanders who read different Newspapers or Magazines.
Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
