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Nqobile Tshili Chronicle Correspondent
CHRONICLE’S local news section recorded a 14 percent increase in readership while the daily’s sports, business and regional beats continued to engross readers in the country.
Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey (ZAMPS) revealed that between October 2015 and last month, Zimpapers publications maintained their market dominance with The Herald leading the daily papers, The Sunday Mail maintaining its first position in weekly publications while Star FM drew the most listeners.
Chronicle’s local news section readership rose from 49 percent in 2015 to 63 percent this year. The section is the mainstay of the southern region’s most read daily newspaper. It has factual coverage of day to day events that readers identify with.
The paper’s sport section, often the first with accurate breaking news, continues to draw readers to the publication.
Zimpapers’ new free publication Suburban, introduced barely a year ago, proved the winner growing its readership from 10 to 66 percent in the period under review.
Local news proved the most popular with readers in the daily and weekly newspaper sections followed by entertainment and business news. Online readership trends continued to be lower compared to print readership for all the newspapers.
In broadcasting, Zimpapers’ radio station Star FM continued its dominance as the leading radio station, maintaining a lead in listenership. Important to note however with Star FM is the growth in listenership from 38 percent last year to 50 percent this year. Star FM was followed by Radio Zimbabwe which remained at 27 percent, same as last year; while Power FM went down to 26 percent from 28 percent in terms of listenership while ZiFM attained 26 percent listenership in 2016 up from 24 percent last year.
Zimpapers chief executive officer Mr Pikirayi Deketeke hailed the publications for remaining competitive, saying integration had positioned Zimpapers to carve a niche as a market leader in the media business.
“This shows our market dominance as a media group. We remain a credible, tried and tested brand. We are known as a content factory that distributes content through multiple platforms. Most of our products have done well and are growing in terms of appeal to audiences. However, this does not mean we can afford to relax,” said Mr Deketeke.
He encouraged some of the Zimpapers publications that have lost clients need to reinvent themselves to reclaim their positions.
“We especially note those of our products whose readership seems to be falling. There is need to examine the issues and work on them so that we can improve the numbers,” he said.
Mr Deketeke said innovation is needed in the group if the media house is to stand the test of the times.
He hailed the introduction of the Suburban, a free newspaper distributed in some of Harare’s northern suburbs, saying they attracted interest in a short space of time.
A total of 500 people were surveyed in Bulawayo and Harare to compile the statistics. — @nqotshili
Online Reporter