Readership up as subscribers soar
READERSHIP of the Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian print editions has increased in the past year — demonstrating again that newspapers still have a strong future, new official audience figures show.
The latest release of the official Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (EMMA) figures comes as today we also proudly announce themercury.com.au now has more than 10,000 digital subscribers.
Editor Chris Jones said the results were further evidence of the enduring value of trusted local media brands in the new digital world of infinite choice.
“The Mercury has been dedicated to serving Hobart and Tasmania since 1854, and despite the false rumours about our industry’s so-called demise these figures demonstrate again the value of our masthead in this state,” Mr Jones said.
“The figures show that 150,000 people read a printed copy of our newspapers in the past month, and that 57 per cent of Tasmanians read the news on our website.
“These results show again that we are by far the dominant news brand across Tasmania, and we thank our loyal readers for their ongoing support.”
The EMMA figures released today for September reveal that 150,000 people read the print editions of the Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian that month — 37 per cent of Tasmania’s adult population. Adding digital, the total reach of the two brands is 228,000 Tasmanians.
The figures also show the Mercury on Saturday was the best-performing print product in the state over the year to September, with average issue readership up 4.5 per cent to 92,000. Average readership of the weekday Mercury is now 85,000 (down just 2000 over the past year), while readership of the Sunday Tasmanian is now almost twice that of its nearest Tasmanian competitor — at 72,000 each week.
To put this into context, on any day of the week our print editions reach more people across Tasmania than the high- est-rating television show.
The 10,000 digital subscribers milestone comes exactly two years to the month since we started charging for our premium journalism online.
Mr Jones said the subscription milestone was one of the most significant in the Mercury’s 164-year history, and pointed to a positive future.
“It shows the value Tasmanians place on quality local journalism — the trusted reporting on the events that matter to our state that you can’t get anywhere else,” he said.
Readership of our weekly Tasmanian Country newspaper is also up, to 27,000.
The success of the print editions here over the past year comes against a backdrop of an average 14.3 per cent decline in readership of all mastheads nationally.