NZ Herald's weekly brand audience soars to record-high 1.72 million

The Weekend Herald remains the powerhouse weekend title, with 530,000 readers, while the Herald on Sunday is read by 317,000 readers.

The NZ Herald's readership is up again – and overall print and digital audience is now at record levels.

The number of people reading the daily newspaper is now at 472,000 - up 19,000 on a year ago, according to Nielsen readership statistics released today.

The weekly brand audience – including the newspaper and nzherald.co.nz – is at 1.72 million, a new high.

"Kiwis are hunting out and poring over our journalism and lifestyle content in growing numbers," said NZ Herald editor Murray Kirkness.

"This is a real tribute to the great journalism being delivered by all of our news teams. The successful launch of the NZ Herald Premium subscription service has lifted the profile of the great journalism on display across all NZME publications."

The Herald's weekly brand audience, including the newspaper and website nzherald.co.nz - has surged to 1.72 million - a new high.

The Weekend Herald remains the powerhouse weekend title, with 530,000 readers, while the Herald on Sunday is read by 317,000 readers – more than the Sunday Star-Times and Sunday News combined.

The Herald's magazines have also all recorded year-on-year readership increases, with Travel the best-read newspaper magazine in the stable and country – 347,000 readers every Tuesday.

The new-look Canvas is also up – to 315,000 readers, an increase of 27,000 people in the past year.

"Readers are rewarding our dedication to deliver high-quality, relevant and on-trend lifestyle content across all of our magazines with readership up year on year, for Canvas, TimeOut, Viva, Spy and of course Travel and Sunday Travel," said NZME entertainment group director Dean Buchanan.

"These magazines are a great place for our advertisers to reach motivated audiences - anyone reading Travel are bound to have their next trip in mind."

NZME's regional newspapers continue to also perform strongly, with 1.02 million people a week reading the print editions of the NZ Herald, Northern Advocate, Bay of Plenty Times, Rotorua Daily Post, Whanganui Chronicle and Hawke's Bay Today.