The Financial Times and Der Spiegel lead the way, Stephen Armstrong
writes
The latest European Business Readership Survey shows that the Financial
Times - guarantor of the survey along with RSL Research - remains the
top publication among the 20 titles researched across 17 countries. Der
Spiegel continued to lead the weeklies, despite a drop in average
readership, and National Geographic came out best of the monthlies in
the study, which was last conducted three years ago.
Only Der Spiegel, the European and Euromoney lost readers over the
period, according to the survey, which singled out members of senior
management at medium to large companies around Europe. A group of
369,441 top decision-makers (figures for 1993 were drawn from 312,480
respondents) were selected by RSL Research, which questioned each about
their reading habits and involvement in company buying decisions, as
well as about details of business travel.
The EBRS figures showed that eight publications increased their
readership among this group, mainly daily newspapers: Handelsblatt, the
International Herald Tribune, the Times, USA Today and the Wall Street
Journal Europe. The Economist was the only weekly title to increase its
coverage of the target group. There were two climbers among the
monthlies, National Geographic and Harvard Business Review.
However, before reaching for the champagne, circulation managers should
examine the lifestyle data given by the same respondents. This showed
that readers were working harder, travelling more and being forced to
take cheaper flights than two years ago, suggesting that a return to the
glory days of the 80s is still far away.
Overall, the survey, which covered 285 national and international
titles, showed few dramatic movements in circulations across Europe.
Perhaps the largest shift was in Der Spiegel, which showed pan-European
readership has fallen by more than 1,000 over the period, stoking fresh
fears that its competitor, Focus, has gained ground on Germany’s leading
fortnightly business title.
Der Spiegel, however, denies losing share to its competitor. The title’s
market research director, Hans-Jurgen Witt, puts the lower figures down
to a low response rate to the survey and argues that Der Spiegel’s move
into TV advertising and its increased use of colour since the launch of
Focus has helped fend off competition.
This was dismissed by Katherine Page, international media director at
RSL. Although agreeing that the response rate was slightly lower than in
1993, she maintains that this has caused no problems with the accuracy
of the data.
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EBRS 1996 SURVEY RESULTS
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Title 1993 1996 93-96
Readers % Readers % Index
per issue coverage per issue coverage
Financial Times 57,841 18.5 66,412 18.0 97
FAZ 48,163 15.4 54,576 14.8 96
Handelsblatt 42,442 13.6 52,588 14.2 105
IHT 9,175 2.9 11,784 3.2 109
The Times 18,790 6.0 26,740 7.2 120
USA Today 4,305 1.4 8,364 2.3 164
Wall St Journal Europe 12,596 4.0 15,822 4.3 106
Businessweek 22,841 7.3 25,046 6.8 93
The Economist 32,400 10.4 40,030 10.8 105
The European 7,075 2.3 6,099 1.7 73
L’Express 26,772 8.6 29,010 7.9 92
Newsweek 16,839 5.4 19,189 5.2 96
Der Spiegel 52,311 16.7 51,211 13.9 83
Time 22,246 7.1 25,290 6.8 96
Fortune 13,997 4.3 14,968 4.1 90
Euromoney 11,934 3.8 11,265 3.0 80
Institutional Investor 11,097 3.6 12,019 3.3 92
National Geographic 30,752 9.8 37,436 10.1 103
Scientific American 6,675 2.1 6,970 1.9 88
Harvard Business Rev. 25,775 8.2 30,983 8.4 102
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