Readers' interests swing to food and travel

More people are reading about food, computers, motoring, sport and travel - and they prefer to read about it in monthly rather than weekly magazines.

As the world gets busier it seems fewer people have time to pick up a magazine every week, especially if it deals with gossip, teens, TV listings, current affairs or news.

The latest national magazine readership survey found only one weekly magazine - Computerworld - retained the same numbers of readers in 2004 as in did 2003. All of the other publications in the survey, including the TV Guide, Time, Woman's Day and Sunday News lost readers last year.

However, the numbers of people reading monthly magazines increased dramatically. NZ Performance Car, NZ Autocar, Air New Zealand, NZ Motorcycle Trader and New all gained, while Player, Creme and Real Groove retained the same number. Seven of the 12 bi-monthly magazines gained or retained readers while all but two of the eight quarterly publications gained or retained readers.

Several titles, including TV Guide, Woman's Day and Sunday News, lost between 1.7 per cent and 2.5 per cent of their readers.

Of all the magazines that gained readers last year the free inflight Air New Zealand had the largest increase with an extra 53,000 readers.

Air New Zealand marketing, network and sales manager Norm Thompson said the increased readership reflected "the excellent job the team at Air New Zealand and ACP Media have been doing since ACP was appointed as the new publisher of the magazine 12 months ago".

AA Directions, with the second biggest increase of 0.9 per cent, had the largest portion of the magazine readers with 972,000 people flipping through its pages, an extra 51,000 readers since 2003.

The magazine is distributed free to AA members, and corporate communications manager Greg Hunting said it was often read by two or three other people.

He attributed its success to ongoing redevelopment, a strong focus on "things that are Kiwi" and quality articles.

NZ Woman's Weekly, with 923,000 readers, had the largest audience of newsstand magazines but that figure was 47,000 fewer than in 2003.

Woman's Weekly did, however, do well in a recent circulation audit which showed it was one of three weekly magazines to achieve significant growth in sales during 2004.

NZ Magazines chief executive Sarah Sandley said the magazine had never looked better and that was a result of asking readers what they wanted and then responding. Other circulation increases included Computerworld 9.3 per cent, Creme 29.3 per cent, NZ Performance Car 14.6 per cent, Player 33 per cent and NZ Bride and Groom 22.5 per cent.

Circulation decreases included NZ Gardener -15.5, Loot Hamilton -19.6, Cleo -9.4 and Metro -2.

Magazine readers 2004

Highest per cent gain in readers:

Air New Zealand 1.4
AA Directions 0.9
Foodtown Mag 0.7
Cuisine 0.7
Jasons Motels 0.7
Performance Car 0.5

Biggest per cent loss in readers:

The TV Guide -2.5
Woman's Day -2.1
Woman's Weekly -1.9
Rugby News -1.4
Tearaway -1.4

Most readers ( per cent):

AA Directions 28.0
Woman's Weekly 26.9
Skywatch 25.3
TV Guide 25.2