Print growth for Stuff Group’s metro mastheads, premium magazines

More New Zealanders are reading Stuff metropolitan newspapers The Post, The Press and Waikato Times each month, with the latest Nielsen results showing an increase in readership over the past quarter.

When combined with the audience of their digital subscription news sites, the mastheads now reach an impressive 1.4 million New Zealanders each month*.

Stuff Masthead Publishing Managing Director Joanna Norris says Stuff Group continues to have the number one combined print and digital audience - stuff.co.nz is the country’s largest New Zealand website and Stuff’s newspapers and premium magazines outstrip the competition.

“In total, we reach 2.3 million Kiwis each month** across our daily and community newspapers and premium magazines. Our focus on beautifully told New Zealand stories, trusted journalism and news relevant to our audiences has driven a really strong finish to the year for our print products, which alongside our rapidly growing digital mastheads are loved and supported by New Zealanders.”

Magazines are performing exceptionally well despite a tough economy. NZ House & Garden grew its readership by 7% over the past quarter to reach 401,000 New Zealanders, cementing its place as New Zealand’s most popular home, garden and entertaining magazine. The country’s biggest gardening magazine NZ Gardener’s reach is up 2.4% quarter-on-quarter at 254,000 readers.

Stuff Director of Agency Markets Jaana Collins says readers of print products are a high value audience, and nowhere else provides the same scale and reach as Stuff Group.

“Not only are print audiences demographically valuable for brands, print also has exceptionally strong brand recall effects,” she says. “Combine this with our digital offering, and the wealth of data and insights that Stuff Group can deliver for our commercial partners, and you have a winning combination for maximum brand impact. There’s really no better place to advertise to reach and engage with Kiwis across the motu at scale.”

Norris says The Post, The Press and Waikato Times are also seeing growth in digital subscriptions.

“Our digital subscriptions are up 16% on the previous quarter and have seen a whopping 163% growth on the same quarter last year, well over double^. We’ve greatly expanded our content offering for digital subscribers this year to include strong local stories from our regional mastheads and inspiring lifestyle content from NZ House & Garden and NZ Gardener magazines, alongside the sharp political, business and economic news and analysis our journalists deliver each day. Our subscribers can support and access all of this for just the price of a flat white each week.”

*Source: Nielsen CMI Q4 23 - Q3 24 fused with Sep 24 online.
**Source: Nielsen CMI Q4 23 - Q3 24. Total Stuff print readership includes our daily & community newspapers, newspaper inserted magazines and premium magazine titles.
^Source: Stuff Group