Measuring the Magazine Audience

Measuring the Magazine Audience: How do they get the information? Circulation figures AC Nielson’s readership survey Focus Groups Competition entries Response on websites Letters to editor Information from advertisers

How do they measure the size of the audience? Collected by sales figures (the numbers of magazines sold) and through information collcted by the New Zealand Audit Bureau of Circulations. They do two audits a year for magazines.

NZ Audit Bureau of Circulations This agency was set up by newspapers, advertisers and advertising agencies. It offers magazine publishers figures so they can see their performance against those of cometitors (they pay for this information). These circulation fiqures measure how many copies of a publication are circulating. (ie magazines sold and multiple readership)

So how do they measure the demographics of the audience? They use ACNielsen’s National Readership Survey which uses face to face interviews with 12,000 people aged 10+ every year. AC Nielsen leaves behind fill-in surveys that provide a lot more demographic information about those surveyed including what they spend their money on. Producers pay for this information.

This information tells the magazine producer about the lifestyle and characteristics of the audience eg age, sex, income etc. It also gives them information on the number of Primary readers (those who buy the magazine) and the number of Secondary readers (those who read copies others have bought)

How often do you read magazines you have not paid for? Where do you read them? What types of magazines are these? Why might it be important to know the number of Secondary readers?

What are Focus groups? Focus groups are small groups of readers who will be interviewed about specific features of the magazine. They might discuss proposed ideas for changing a magazine and test the group for their reactions. It might be used to find out more detail about the audience and what they want in a magazine. Companies are employed by the magazine producers to carry out these surveys

Other ways of measuring the audience Competitions are used to gather information from readers- as well as entering the competition you often have to give other information What sort of questions do these competition often have? How might this help the producers know more about their auidence?

Other ways of measuring the audience Responses on websites: This includes information from online surveys and s to editor. Have you ever completed a survey on line? What would the magazine producers know about you?

Other ways of measuring the audience Letters to the editor: Magazines often have a selection of letters to the editor in each issue of the magazine. These give them information about what people like in the magazine, or dislike. It also makes the reader feel like a part of a community. Do you read the letters to the editor? Why? What other letters are there in magazines?

Stella Website Lets find out what information the producers can gather about their readers from their interation with the website Go to……

Stella Website What are some of the ways Stella could gather information about its readers from this site? Record specific ways and details in your book.