Overall, newspapers and magazines in the developed nations may be hemorrhaging losses as readers rush off to the internet and other newer media. But there's one area where readers remain loyal to print, and it's an area that matters hugely to advertisers.
That's among Europe’s business elite.
A new survey shows that readership of international print publications, which includes titles like the Financial Times and the Economist, by Europe’s business elite has actually increased.
The share of the business elite who read these publications rose to 40.0 percent this year from to 36.6 percent in 2006, according to the Ipsos MediaCT survey, which was previously known as the EBRS.
While these folks have ramped up their consumption of news online, they have not cut back on their consumption of traditional sources of news. Key among the reasons, believe the researchers, the print titles are portable, which fits well into an on-the-go lifestyle. But another key factor is trust. Those readers trust what they read in those publications over what they read online.
“The senior business elite trust the traditional sources they are used to. They are using new technology but going to traditional reliable sources to validate information supplied via newer media,” says Simon Staplehurst, Ipsos MediaCT director.
The study, sponsored by international print and broadcast media and major media buying agencies, surveyed 7,266 business leaders in medium and large companies across 17 countries in Europe, and it found that readership of each of the four categories of international print titles either increased or remained static.
For instance, in the daily title category, which includes the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal Europe, publications were read by 17 percent in 2008, up from 16 percent in 2006.
Overall the weeklies, a category that includes the Economist and Time magazine, were up 2 percentage points to 20 percent.
Readership of fortnightlies, a category including Forbes and Fortune, held steady at 5 percent, while that of the monthly category, which includes National Geographic and Euromoney, rose to 24 percent, up from 20 percent two years ago.
These increases come despite the fact that seven in 10 respondents use the internet to get news updates, and half say they receive a daily news update via email.
“You would normally expect print to suffer on behalf of the web, but with this particular audience, because they are the most senior business people, we know that print is a very important part of their daily lives, and they do read a lot of print,” says Matte Petersen, project director on the survey.
The print publication nabbing the highest percentage of elite readers was the Financial Times. Some 14.3 percent of those surveyed said they were readers, up from 13.1 percent in 2006.
Other titles to show increases were the Economist, up to 12.3 percent from 10.5 percent, and National Geographic, read by 9.3 percent of respondents, up from 6.9 percent in the last survey.
Despite the overall upward trend there are some publications for which readership remained stable or slipped slightly.
The New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune slipped to 1.8 percent from 2.5 percent, while The Wall Street Journal Europe fell slightly to 2.4 percent from 2.8 percent two years ago. However, the researchers believe that these figures really represent a relatively stable performance.
