The combined readership of the Herald in print and online has risen again.
Latest figures from Nielsen for calendar 2012 show that our average daily readership has hit 817,000, which is up 12,000 or 1.5 per cent from a year ago. The weekly "brand audience" rose to 1,356,000, up 47,000or 3.5 per cent.
Average daily readership of the print Herald was 531,000, down 39,000 - mainly as a result of a deliberate reduction in uneconomic circulation of the paper. Last year the Herald's programme of up to 8000 sponsored copies being issued through low-decile schools in south and west Auckland had to be withdrawn due to cost. That saw the paper's average daily circulation fall from 170,833 to 162,181.
APN New Zealand chief executive Martin Simons said the end of the literacy programme had affected about 30,000 readers. "When you look through the impact of this decision, core readership of the Herald is very stable."
The total number of people reading nzherald.co.nz and our mobile apps kept rising. Traffic across the Herald's mobile platforms increased 92 per cent in the past 12 months.
The Herald on Sunday grew its paid circulation again, by 265 copies to 101,295. The nationally circulated Sunday Star-Times fell 22,000 copies to 131,196.
