Herald keeps on gaining readers

The Herald on Sunday was the only Sunday paper to gain readers - up 1.3 per cent to 383,000. Photo / Thinkstock

The New Zealand Herald's readership is up yet again.

The newspaper recorded a figure of 593,000 readers for the 12 months to March - an increase of 11,000 (1.9 per cent) on the same period last year.

Named last month as the 2011 Canon Newspaper of the Year, the Herald enjoyed readership increases throughout its circulation area, including in Auckland.

The Herald easily remains New Zealand's best-read newspaper - with 53,000 more readers than the nationally circulated Sunday Star-Times. That paper lost 5000 readers in the same period.

The Dominion Post's readership dropped by 24,000, to 225,000 - a fall classed as significant by by the Nielsen agency, which calculated the figures - while the two metropolitan South Island newspapers, the Press and the Otago Daily Times had readership boosts of 9.7 per cent and 5.1 per cent respectively.

The Herald on Sunday was the only Sunday paper to gain readers - up 1.3 per cent to 383,000.

Almost all the Herald's inserted magazines had healthy readership boosts - including Time Out (up 10.2 per cent), Travel (up 7.9 per cent), Viva (up 7.2 per cent) and the Business Herald (up 4.4 per cent).