Newspapers
The latest National Readership Survey for periods to June 1996 show that among daily national newspapers most titles in the quality sector experienced a decline in 12-month readership figures: the Daily Telegraph and The Independent had the biggest losses, down 11.2% to 2.4 million and 11.3% to 823,000 respectively. The Guardian lost 97,000 readers, a decrease of 7%, whilst the Financial Times showed a slight increase of 0.8% to 727,000. Once again the Times put in the strongest performance, with readership increasing by 1.2% to 1.7m.
In the middle market the Daily Mail easily beat the Daily Express: the Mail‘s readership grew by over 16% to just over 5 million, whilst the Express lost over 5%, bringing its readership down to 3 million. The Sun‘s readership grew 1.6% to over 10 million with the Daily Star‘s readership reaching just over 2 million, a growth of 5%.
All quality Sunday newspapers experienced a loss of readers: the Observer‘s readership declined by 11% to 1.3 million whilst the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph dropped to 3.7 million and 1.8 million readers respectively.
Women’s Magazines
Among the weeklies, most titles showed a drop in 12-monthly readership. IPC especially will not be impressed with its stable of women’s weekly titles: Woman lost 7.2%, bringing readership down to 2.54 million and Woman’s Realm‘s readership fell by 9% to 1.1 million. Bella also dropped 10% to 2.9 million. Hello! showed the strongest performance, with readership increasing by almost 7% to 1.6 million.
There was a similar trend among the monthly titles. Cosmopolitan recorded a loss in 12-monthly readership of over 3%, bringing it down to 1.78 million and Woman and Home dropped over 20% to 1.3 million;Elle also dropped, by 9% to 854,000, as did Prima and Vogue which dropped 12% (to 1.68m) and 11% (to 1.33m) respectively. Marie Claire however recorded an increase in readership of 10% (up to 1.51m) as did Options, up 3% to 459,000 readers.
Men’s Magazines
This sector continued to show very good growth. FHM (For Him Magazine) showed an amazing growth in readership from 343,000 in 1995 to 663,000 in 1996, representing an increase of over 93%. GQ grew its readership by 28% to 795,000 and Loaded carried on its successful trend with an increase of 327,000 new readers or 70%, taking its present readership to 791,000.
MediaTel subscribers can access the latest NRS figures in Press Planner (Talking Windows)
