Financial Gazette (Harare)
13 December 2001
Harare — ZIMBABWE'S economic crisis took its toll on newspaper readership in the country this year but the Financial Gazette maintained its pole position as the country's preferred business and financial weekly, according to the 2001 Zimbabwe All Media and Products Survey (ZAMPS).
According to ZAMPS, conducted between February and May, nine percent of Zimbabwe's adult population or about 545 431 peo-ple had read the Financial Gazette in the six months prior to the start of the survey compared to 238 319 or four percent for its closest competitor, the Zimbabwe Indepe-ndent.
However, the survey found that the readership of almost all of the country's newspapers tumbled during 2001 because of Zimbabwe's deteriorating economic climate, which saw consumers' disposable incomes falling sharply.
The survey reconfirmed that the Financial Gazette is the top-choice financial newspaper for highly educated and wealthy Zimbabweans in decision-making positions in both the private and public sectors.
According to the survey, 28 percent of the people who read the Financial Gazette every week are company chief executives and top business and public sector executives and the majority of these readers live in affluent low-density suburbs of Zimbabwe's main cities and towns.
The newspaper is a specialist publication which deliberately limits its print run because it only targets the top-end of the market as opposed to mass circulating newspapers which seek to appeal to all readers.
Elias Rusike, the chief executive officer and publisher of the Financial Gazette, yesterday said demand for the newspaper could be seen in its increased print run, which stands at more than 35 000 copies a week despite Zimbabwe's depressed economy.
"We anticipate that our print run will hit 40 000 copies a week in three months' time as we move closer to the presidential elections in March 2002," he said.
The Financial Gazette's weekly print run had already soared to 40 000 by last year from about 25 000 two years before.
Rusike said: "The steady readership of the Financial Gazette is attributable to the high editorial quality and balanced and objective reporting of the newspaper.
"Our mission is to provide our readers and advertisers with a quality product, a product which provides a forum for debate to people and groups with different and, at times, conflicting view points.
"I would like to thank our valued readers and advertisers for supporting us in this deficient economic environment. We commit ourselves to keep on improving the quality of the Financial Gazette every week."
ZAMPS found that readership of the mass circulation Sunday Mail, which is read by about 30 percent of the adult population, fell from 1.4 million readers a week to 996 000. The number of people who read the Mail's rival, the Standard, each Sunday also dropped to 76 000 from 191 000 last year.
In the daily press category, the state-controlled Herald lost more than 300 000 readers in the past 12 months. According to the survey, readership per issue of the Herald declined by more than 40 percent from 744 000 readers in 2000 to some 430 000 this year.
The privately-run Daily News, which has offered the greatest challenge to the Herald since its formation in 1999, however saw its readership rising from 512 000 last year to 582 000 in 2001.
Lance Jena, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Advertising Research Foundation which has commissioned ZAMPS in the past four years, described the survey as a marketer's reference book used by decision-makers to target their market.
"It tells us what 5 000 adults and 2 000 teenagers read, watch and listen to, their likes and dislikes, their lifestyles, what they buy and where they shop," Jena said.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2001 Financial Gazette. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
