Herald stays ahead of the pack

The New Zealand Herald has strengthened its lead in readership among the country's metropolitan newspapers.

Latest Nielsen Media Research figures show the Herald had 52.4 per cent of metropolitan readership in the year to December 31, up from 51.8 per cent in the last survey a year earlier.

The Herald, published by APN New Zealand, continues to reach more than 1 million readers over the course of a week.

Average daily readership has dipped slightly in a market which saw some newspapers suffer significant falls in reader numbers.

The Herald is read by an average of 590,000 people a day aged 15 and over, down from 603,000.

In Auckland, the paper's average daily readership is 399,000, a fall of just 4000 year on year, and a total unmatched by any other print, television or radio news outlet.

The Weekend Herald is the best-read paper in the country with 679,000 readers, and almost twice as many readers in Auckland, and the wider northern region, as any other weekend paper.

No figures were available in this survey for the Herald on Sunday, which began publishing in October, and has consistently exceeded sales expectations.

Another APN title, the Aucklander, which is distributed free to homes across the region, recorded a strong readership total of 434,000, confirming its appeal as a community and lifestyle publication in magazine format.

In other centres, the Wellington Dominion-Post shrank average daily readership from 261,000 to 244,000, the Press, Christchurch, rose from 222,000 to 227,000, the Otago Daily Times fell from 107,000 to 96,000 and the Waikato Times saw its numbers fall from 104,000 to 97,000.

Both old Sunday newspapers, the Sunday Star-Times (down 25,000 to 646,000) and the Sunday News (down 40,000 to 452,000) were described by Nielsen as experiencing "significant" falls, and the tabloid National Business Review went down from 102,000 to just 91,000.

This is the first year that the survey has been conducted using Nielsen's expanded survey of 15,000 people nationally, up from 12,000.

Making news in Auckland

NZ Herald 399,000 readers
One News 169,600 viewers
Close Up 124,400 viewers
3 News 84,800 viewers
Breakfast 24,600 viewers
Newstalk ZB 209,000 listeners*

* Over a week, listening at least once during day. Other figures are average daily for Aucklanders aged 15+