Herald readership soars for both print and digital versions

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Readership of the Herald is soaring - in print and across all of our digital platforms.

The number of people reading the newspaper, website and mobile apps is now at 1.349 million each week, up 10,000 on the previous quarter.

Readership of the newspaper (Monday-Saturday) has jumped to 480,000 each day, up 5000 on the previous quarter. Readership of the Herald on Sunday sits at 371,000, up 5000 on the same period last year.

Newspaper circulation is also stable across the quarter, at 147,369.

APN's chief marketing officer, Kursten Shalfoon, said: "Understanding what motivates our customers to engage with us plays an integral part in everything we do.

"We put our readers at the heart of our decision-making to deliver a portfolio of market-leading brands across a wide range of devices.

"News content remains highly relevant to New Zealanders as they increasingly turn to the Herald to get the very latest news, opinion and debate."

The launch of the Viva magazine app and Bite magazine digital platform have also been key drivers in the brand audience growth.

Nielsen's NetView shows the Herald's monthly unique audience has increased by 23 per cent compared with last year, the highest number of New Zealanders ever engaging with the brand (1,210,573).

Engagement with our digital content remains extremely strong with the Herald's average session duration on desktop currently at 5.03 minutes, 65 per cent better than the average for our nearest competing news sites. Growth in mobile use has seen the Herald's mobile site and apps reach their highest levels so far, with the mobile site up 98 per cent in the last 12 months.

The app audience has grown by 31 per cent as readers look to their mobile devices to get news updates throughout the day.

Engagement with our print products remains strong, people reading the weekday Herald for an average of 35 minutes, 52 minutes for the Weekend Herald and 45 minutes for the Herald on Sunday.