Zimpapers maintains market dominance

Herald Reporters
Zimbabwe Newspapers (1980) Limited has maintained its top position in readership and listenership for the third consecutive year for the first half of the year, the latest Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey (ZAMPS) shows.

The country’s leading media group, has since 2014 maintained a tight grip on the market, claiming a huge slice in the print and electronic media products.

In the latest survey, the groups’ five weekly titles — The Sunday Mail, Kwayedza, B-Metro, Manica Post and Sunday News came out tops in weekly paper category, demonstrating Zimpapers’ cutting edge prowess in terms of local and international presence, reach and market.

The group managed to keep its pole position despite a marginal decline in both readership and listenership compared to the previous year owing largely to the difficult economic environment that affected all the country’s print and electronic media.

Latest findings of the Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey were presented in Harare yesterday. The survey, conducted on readership for the 2017 first half national report revealed that in the daily Press sector, The Herald retains its lead, both nationally and in urban areas.

Nationally, 25 percent of adult Zimbabweans read The Herald, down from 31 percent in the second half report of 2016, and in urban areas readership is at 31 percent.

H-Metro, a second Harare Zimpapers daily, has maintained second place both nationally, with 17 percent of readers and in urban areas with 23 percent.

Readership in Harare was higher for both dailies with 41 percent and 37 percent, respectively. Among weekly newspapers, The Sunday Mail retains its dominance in first place.

Nationally, it is followed in second, third, fourth and fifth places by Kwayedza, B-Metro, The Manica Post and Sunday News, all Zimpapers titles.

In urban areas B-Metro and Kwayedza switch the second and third places, Sunday News and The Manica Post on fourth and fifth place, respectively. The survey showed that in broadcasting, Zimpapers’ radio station Star FM continues to dominate urban listenership with 34 percent market share.

Radio Zimbabwe takes lead on national listenership with 39 percent, while Star FM seats on second place with 29 percent. Power FM follows with 16 percent listenership, while ZiFM recorded 11 percent on fourth place.

Zimpapers group chief executive Mr Pikirayi Deketeke said the latest ZAMPS results show that readership and listenership trends continue to evolve calling for innovation by producers of content in order to remain relevant.

With more and more people accessing the Internet, he said there were plenty of opportunities to tap into the digital spaces and provide content in the spaces that content consumers are found.

“The media industry continues to evolve. It is for this reason that we are constantly re-looking at our business models to see how else and how best we can service clients. As a content hub, we have recently re-organised Zimpapers into three; the Digital and Publishing, Broadcasting Services as well as the Commercial Printing and Packaging divisions respectively, so that we can service our clients even better.

“In today’s environment we must constantly go back to the drawing board and learn from what we see happening around us. This latest survey shows us that trends are always shifting, hence, we will respond by constantly improving the way we do business. We will invest in transmitters, so that our national radio station can be accessed throughout the country,” he said.

Zimpapers recently launched a business publication, Business Weekly, in response to calls by the market for a purely business publication.

It also brought back its mobile news service product as it makes serious investments in digital spaces. Mr Deketeke congratulated editors in the group and their teams as well as Star FM and Diamond FM for the good showing in this latest survey.

He urged them to work even harder saying competition increases when one is in the lead. The Zimbabwe Advertising Research Foundation (Zarf), is a body that brings together media organisations and advertising stakeholders commissions Zamps in order to undertake market research for advertisers.

The surveys are seen as being crucial and relevant for media managers, advertisers and investors in terms of informing strategic interventions that aim to promote media development in the country.

This foundation is funded by a one percent levy on advertising. Zarf in turn commissions a competent independent research company, in this case Topline Research Solutions, to do the actual survey.

Zimpapers has since 2014 largely dominated the media industry’s market share for both readership and listenership.

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