'Herald' stable of publications shows strong growth over year

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Readership of the Herald in print and online has climbed to a record 805,000 people a day.

The combined "brand audience" for Herald journalism rose by 5 per cent in the past year.

At the same time, the print edition of the New Zealand Herald has recorded another rise in circulation.

Average sales of the paper have grown to 170,833, the fifth consecutive ABC audit to show an increase.

The Herald is the only major daily in the country to grow in the year to December 31.

Its stablemate Herald on Sunday recorded strong sales growth, to 101,030 on an average week. The Sunday compact paper is now at its highest sales since just after launch in 2004/5.

In the separate Nielsen readership survey results also issued yesterday, the Herald on Sunday saw its readership nudge up 3000 to 382,000 while the weekday Herald dropped back off near-decade highs to 570,000 readers, down 29,000 over the year but just 4000 since the last survey. The Herald is read by more than double the readers of any other daily paper.

Magazines included with the paper had substantial readership rises, with Timeout on Thursday up 26,000 to 451,000 and Wednesday's Viva section hitting 339,000 (up 17,000) to achieve record highs.

The Weekend Herald remains the country's biggest read newspaper, with 616,000 readers, almost 80,000 more than the nationally circulating Sunday Star-Times. The combined Herald brand audience tops 1.3 million across a typical week. nzherald.co.nz, named best website at the 2011 Canon media awards, has seen its unique browsers increase by 28 per cent. And while attracting new users, nzherald.co.nz also experienced growth in the time people spend with its content, with "engagement time" increasing 9 per cent.

Herald editor-in-chief Tim Murphy said the strong newspaper sales reflected a highly successful drive for home subscribers. "And readers really responded to our world-class coverage of major news including the Christchurch earthquake, Rena disaster, Rugby World Cup and general election."