Zamps survey proves we do not come second

arms length, and then hire an independent research company to do the work.
Zamps gives, so far as newspaper readership is concerned, a strong warning that they count readers not papers printed or papers sold; the results are generally summarised in two forms: the estimated number of readers each title has and the percentage of adult urban Zimbabweans who read a particular title.
The first is an absolute figure, the second a comparative figure.
So far as comparisons are concerned, quarterly survey after quarterly survey produces roughly similar results: The Herald dominates the market; the Herald and Chronicle, which are effectively geographical editions of the same newspaper sharing the same pool of stories, are combined twice as big as their nearest rival; that H-Metro is read by more people in Harare than any other paper except The Herald, whose owners and building it shares; and that NewsDay and Daily News have roughly similar readerships and it is impossible to tell from one survey to the next who will be a nose in front of the other.
In other words the market is remarkably stable when percentage penetrations are compared.
The second interesting fact we get from the percentage figures is that newspapers are popular. The five main dailies between them are read by 105 percent of the adult urban population of Zimbabwe, which means quite a few people must read at least two.
Newspapers are not dying.
But, there is a general trend of a very slow decline in total numbers of readers of print editions, about one to two percent of the urban population a year. This can be wrongly interpreted. Zamps is sufficiently comprehensive that we can easily find that we are not losing readers, but in fact are gaining them.
We are seeing a growing number who read their newspapers in digital format, generally the web editions, rather than grabbing a print copy.
So far as The Herald is concerned, adding print readers and on-line readers and our readership is rising, and similar results are obtained for most other titles.
Announcements about the death of newspapers are premature. Few people wanting to know what is going on, or what others are thinking, can spend hours a day trolling the web; they need a package of the essentials, and that is called a newspaper.
The trend is worldwide. While print still dominates, digital is growing, which is why there is slow and steady progress to erecting pay walls so that people have to subscribe to digital editions.
Readers benefit financially, even with pay walls, since it is much cheaper to supply a digital version than to supply the same thing on costly paper.
More and more media houses are splitting the cost of a newspaper, the package, from the cost of delivery, which includes running a press.
In fact, as alternatives become more common, and technical changes proliferate, it is likely that within the lifetime of some people reading this that no newspaper will be printed, but newspapers will still survive and flourish.
Already several smaller city titles in the US are published six or seven times a week, but only printed three or four times a week.
Zimpapers is aware of these trends. Besides our on-line edition we also have a mobile edition, sent direct to telephones and with smart phones taking huge percentages of the market, another fact from Zamps, we think this is likely to be a major factor in African newspapers in the medium term.
Our competitors tend to measure themselves against us, which we suppose makes sense if you are the smaller and less popular newspaper.
We do not. We measure ourselves against our readers’ expectations, as we have been doing for a 120 years. Competition is welcome since if nothing else it keeps us on our toes in making sure that our readers get good value and ensures that we invest in new products, new ways of delivering news and views, and better ways of getting news.
In other words we measure ourselves against absolute standards, not against what someone else may, or usually may not, be doing. And because we do this we are better able to continue investing in our business.
We do not come second.