APR-SEP’93 NRS COMMENTARY

National Newspapers

The NRS Average Issue Readership figures for April to September’93 show mixed results for the national newspapers. The Guardian faired well with its readership rising up above the 1.5m mark to 1,543,000, this is 110,000 more than its January to June figure. Other titles recording higher figures for this period, compared with January to June, include the Times, Sunday Times and Observer.

Other newspapers faired less well; both the Daily Mail and Daily Express dropped 200,000 on their January to June figures. The Financial Times dropped 100,000 on its previous figure.

6-Monthly NRS Trends ('000)

NB. Direct comparisons between periods are discouraged by NRS

General Weeklies

The TV listings titles still dominate the general weeklies group. The 5 listings magazines have a combined readership of 16.5m, making up 56% of the total readership of this group. The Radio Times has dipped slightly below the 5m mark in this period to 4,998,000 and the TV Times has also dropped slightly to 4,467,000. IPC’s youngest listing’s magazine TV & Satellite Week recorded its first readership figure of 950,000 in this period.

TV Listings Market

6-Monthly NRS Trends ('000)

General Monthlies

Sky magazine has doubled its readership over the past 12 months. Its April to September figure of 2,048,000 gives it the 4th highest readership of all the general monthlies, behind Readers Digest, National Geographic and What Car. Vox, Q and GQ also recorded higher figures during this period. GQ’s figure of 1,277,000 is 160,000 higher than the last period, Q’s 845,000 is 150,000 higher and Vox’s 484,000 is 100,000 higher.

BBC Music Magazine recorded its first readership figure of 343,000 in this period. Of the other BBC monthlies only BBC Gardeners World showed an increase against January to June, up by 100,000 to 1,791,000. BBC Good Food, BBC Holidays and BBC Wildlife all dropped readership on the previous period.

Women’s Weeklies

At the top of the women’s weeklies readership table, Take A Break, Bella, and Woman’s Own all recorded figures around the 3.5m mark. All the women’s weeklies except MG, Me and The Lady recorded higher readership figures in this period compared with January to June. Woman, Peoples Friend, Chat and Woman’s Weekly were among those to increase their readership by 100,000+.

6-Monthly NRS Trends ('000)

Women’s Monthlies

Prima and Good Housekeeping both recorded a readership of 2,307,000 in this period, giving them the joint highest figures of all the women’s monthlies. This is an increase of 140,000 for Good Housekeeping and a decrease of 80,000 for Prima, when compared with the January to June figures.

Woman and Home edged closer to the 2m mark recording a readership of 1,965,000 and Marie Claire’s readership rose above 1m for the first time to 1,063,000. The Clothes Show Magazine recorded a readership of 1,051,000, down by 170,000 on January to June. Women’s Monthlies OK’s first readership of 383,000 places it in the bottom half of the readership table. OK has achieved less than a quarter of the readership of the weekly Hello.