That good old country hit, “If teardrops were pennies and heartaches were gold,” takes on new meaning for the South African newspaper industry today. If rewritten, it would read something like “If readers were pennies, and eyeballs were gold.”
Save for the major start-ups – Daily Sun, Sunday Sun, Son and Sowetan Sunday World – newspaper circulation has declined, or at best stagnated, over the past seven years. The losses vary widely, with those seen as close substitutes of these major start-ups showing the largest declines. Among the dailies, Sowetan has suffered the heaviest losses, with circulation falling 38 percent from about 211,630 copies in July-December 1999 to 131,458 copies in January-March 2006. Among the weeklies, City Press has seen its circulation plunge 43 percent from 323,612 copies to 185,540 copies over the same period.
With little joy from ABC circulation figures over the past three years, the big question is to what extent the print media could take comfort in the readership numbers. The AMPS data for the period 1999 to 2005 show more stability in newspaper readership than audited circulation. Almost all newspapers appear to “lock” their readership per copy (RPC) onto a specific range, which is then maintained for the six years under review (there are no new AMPS data for 2006 yet).
Expectedly, titles with unchanged circulation numbers hardly show any movement on their RPC – like Sunday Times (6-7), Mercury (5-6), Cape Argus (5-6), Cape Times (5-6), Rapport (4-5) and The Star (4-5), Volksblad (4), Beeld (3-4), Weekend Argus (3-4) and Business Day (2-3).
Surprisingly, big circulation swings do not necessarily imply wild gyrations in readership. Newcomer Sunday Sun’s RPC has stabilised at 11 readers, while the Daily Sun has settled at 7-8 readers. This is in spite of their huge circulation gains within a relatively short time. Even circulation losers also appear stable within broader RPC ranges, for example Sowetan (10-13) and City Press (10-13) and Citizen (5-8).
A factor that appears to drive readership patterns is subscriptions and bulk sales. Titles with high subscriptions or bulk sales (The Star, Business Day, Die Burger and Beeld) have relatively lower RPCs than those relying heavily on single copy sales.
These patterns suggest the need for South African media market analysts to seriously consider joining the emerging global trend of highlighting readership quality and patterns, as opposed to exclusively looking at circulation.
But the clamour for a new measure is also about providing advertisers with new information that simple circulation rates can’t provide.
One such component of the readership school is the value of pass-along readers, like the 10-13 readers for each copy of the Sowetan or City Press. While these “hand-me-downs” offer little premium in the SA media market, they certainly would be great food for thought in tight newspaper markets such as the UK, with an average RPC of three copies.
New research also supports reopening the debate. In numerous western newspaper markets, only little differences are discernible between subscribers, single-copy buyers and pass-alongs. Of note, especially for advertisers, is the finding that one-third of readers in any of these categories spend 30 minutes to one hour reading a newspaper. Moreover, pass-alongs read an average of 40 percent of the newspaper, and about one-quarter read either “75 percent or more of the entire newspaper”.
Readership measurement is further enhanced by its ability to capture and quantify the circumstances in which more people are reading without buying, such as offices, restaurants, garages, and doctors’ waiting rooms. Thinks of the million “golden” eyes poring over pages of local newspapers right now. Pass-alongs whiling away? I beg to differ.
Nixon Kariithi is associate professor of journalism and media studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.