NRS Trends Oct’91-Mar’92 – Commentary

The latest NRS readership figures to be released for national newspapers and magazines are the first to have been produced under the new structure of reporting.

Each publication has been allocated a frequency of reporting and recommended minimum analysis base, depending on the size of its readership and its display advertising revenue. There are now three possible reporting frequencies:

As a result of the changes, some titles which have previously had six-monthly readership figures, released on a quarterly basis, will now only have annual figures, released on a quarterly basis.

DAILY NEWSPAPERS

The NRS figures for October 1991 to March 1992 show that, of the three newspaper groups, the dailies faired worst, with a similar pattern emerging to the ABCs for this period.

The only national title to achieve a readership increase was The Daily Telegraph , up by a sizeable 10.9% year-on-year to 2,569,000. The Sun recorded a readership well below the 10m mark, down by 0.8% to 9,811,000. Notable losses were recorded by Today (-11.8%), The Daily Star (-7.0%), and The Daily Express (-6.8%).

The London Evening Standard once again attained a respectable increase, up by 19.7% to 1,236,000.

SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS

A far more positive picture emerges from the Sunday Newspapers, with the readership figures contrasting starkly with the circulations for the same period.

The only quality Sunday to lose readership year – on – year was The Observer, down 1.8%. The Sunday Telegraph achieved a 6.3% increase, while The Independent on Sunday and The Sunday Times rose by 0.6% and 0.5% respectively.

The mid-markets, which were the only Sundays to increase their circulations against the previous year, strengthened their readerships in this period. The Sunday Express rose 13.0% to 4,658,000 and The Mail on Sunday stopped just short of achieving 6m readers, up 5.7% to 5,999,000.

The News of the World, while still leading the Sunday field by a long way, experienced a 3.8% fall in readership year-on-year.

SUPPLEMENTS

As would be expected, the Sunday supplements followed a similar pattern to the Sunday Newspapers. The Express Magazine achieved the highest readership increase , up 11.4% to 4,436,000. The Mail on Sunday’s You rose 5.0% to 5,978,000.

Of the two Saturday supplements covered by the NRS survey , The Telegraph magazine rose 13.7% to 3,090,000. The Independent Magazine,on the other hand, fell 9.7% to 1,598,000. The Evening Standard supplement ES did not attain the same level of increase as the paper, up by just 0.2% to 1,757,000. However, the magazine does have 500,000 more readers than the paper.

GENERAL WEEKLIES

The four TV Listings titles remain at the top of the general weeklies table. A sizeable gap has emerged in this period between the Radio Times and TV Times. In the last reporting period (July – December 1991) only 34,000 separated the two major players. Now the Radio Times leads the field by more than 600,000 with a readership of 6,089,000. Readership for the TV Times now stands at 5,429,000. The other two listings titles have lower readerships, TV Quick recorded a figure of 2,717,000, with What’s on TV on 2,196,000.

Among the remainder of the general weeklies, with a six months analysis base, the Angling Times recorded the highest year-on-year increase, up 30.4% to 695,000. Other notable increases were recorded by NME (+13.0%) and Country Life (+19.1%).

WOMEN’S WEEKLIES

On the whole the women’s weeklies displayed an uninspiring set of readership figures with only four magazines recording year – on – year increases. Take A Break increased its readership by 50% to 2,826,000 and Hello rose by 45.9% to 1004,000.

The magazines which recorded notable losses in this section included Bella (-5.5%), Woman’s Weekly (-7.2%), Best (-7.8%), Chat (-7.6%) and Me (-11.6%).

GENERAL MONTHLIES

The general monthlies produced mixed results with an equal number of titles recording readership losses and gains.

Readers Digest, the long-term leader in this field recorded a fall of 4.3% to give a figure of 5,753,000. Titles in this group experiencing substantial losses included Sky (down 11.1% to 986,000), Intercity (down 17.5% to 547,000), and Do-It-Yourself (down 25.7% to 439,000).

The 30 year old Candis experienced a considerable increase in this period (+29.8%) and now has over 1m readers. What Car, BBC Wildlife, Saga Magazine and Q were also among those recording respectable increases.

The business title Management Today rose by 24.7% to 419,000. WOMEN’S MONTHLIES Prima remains at the top of the women’s monthly group with a readership of 2351,000 slightly in front of Woman and Home. Good Housekeeping has moved ahead of Family Circle into third place, increasing its readership by 10% to 1,900,000.

In the top half of this group the two BBC magazines attained the highest increases. BBC Good Food rose by 27.0% to 1,412,000 and the Clothes Show Magazine rose by 28.4% to 1,185,000.

House Beautiful and ’19’ also recorded appreciable increases, rising by 15.9% and 12.5% respectively. Further down the field, Health and Fitness increased by 78.6% to 368,000 and World of Interiors rose by 32.6% to 183,000.

Those women’s monthlies which experienced large falls in readership included Annabel (down 24.4% to 477,000) , Options (down 27.3% to 449,000) and Harpers and Queen (down 21.9% to 363,000).