Cape Town - Independent Media’s quality stable of national print publications continues to perform extremely well in a tough market, after the release of the latest round of AMPS readership figures.
All Independent’s daily newspapers in the Cape region recorded significant growth, with the Cape Argus reaching a total of 421 000 daily readers at the end of December 2014, up on the 344 000 recorded the last time the AMPS figures were released for the end of June 2014.
The Cape Times readership grew from 200 000 to 235 000 in the second half of 2014, while the tabloid Daily Voice readership grew from 468 000 daily readers to 516 000.
While the Saturday Argus readership dipped slightly from 123 000 to 104 000 in December, the Sunday Argus’ readership surged from 127 000 t0 196 000 at year-end.
In Gauteng, Independent’s flagship title The Star dipped to 598 000 daily readers from 659 000, while the Saturday Star’s readership went up from 209 000 to 219 000. Pretoria News impressed with growth in daily readers from 125 000 to 141 000.
In Kwazulu-Natal, Independent’s daily titles continue to perform solidly, with the Daily News readership up significantly from 255 000 to 289 000, the Mercury rising from 180 000 to 185 000, Isolezwe continuing its impressive growth from 1 176 000 daily readers to 1 180 000, with over 1 150 000 additional readers of its weekend editions.
Independent’s publication in the Northern Cape, Diamond Fields Advertiser (DFA), put in a sparkling performance with readership growing to 81 000 from 77 000 in June 2014.
Independent on Saturday’s readership is down from 145 000 to 107 000, while the Sunday Tribune’s readership is down from 401 000 to 337 000 and the Post’s readership is 244 000, down from 274 000 in June 2014.
In its Condé Nast magazine division, Independent Media’s GQ South Africa, Glamour, House and Garden and Personal Finance continue to perform well and collectively attracted over one million high-end monthly readers at the end of 2014.
“We are extremely encouraged to see Independent Media’s titles continue to perform consistently well in catering for its local audiences and providing good value for our advertisers. We are especially happy with the performance of our Cape region, where the Cape Argus’ change of format from compact to US broadsheet has clearly been well-received by readers and advertisers.
In a year of considerable change at the Cape Times, where we implemented a number of editorial changes in 2014, the title continues to perform extremely well and its readership encouragingly continues to grow,” said Independent Media’s Editorial and Brand Executive Jermaine Craig.
“Nationally, the Independent brand remains very strong in the South African media landscape. We are now intensifying our research efforts to better understand our readership, to work on the positioning of our titles in the market and to identify our opportunities for growth. We are excited about our growth potential and testament to this is the launch this month of a number of new projects, including the launch of our Xhosa daily I’solezwe lesiXhosa in the Eastern Cape and the launch of our Mobile Journalism studio countrywide, which we piloted at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival last week. We have a few more exciting initiatives in the pipeline, which we will announce in due course, but wish to thank our group’s loyal readers and advertisers for their continued support,” Craig added.