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Patrick Chitumba Senior Reporter
CHRONICLE has maintained top position as the most read and up to date newspaper in the southern region of the country.
According to the latest Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey for first half of the year, all the newspapers recorded increases in their readership.

Published by Zimpapers, the Chronicle’s subscriptions grew from one percent in 2013 to two percent in 2014 and the vendor distribution grew to six percent from five percent.

Daily readership of the Chronicle also grew by two percent nationally.

The readership stood at seven percent in 2013 and now stands at nine percent.

The survey was conducted on 4,000 adults who represent 3,404,240 (44 percent) of the country’s population.

Of these 69 percent were urbanites and 31 percent from rural areas.

The Zimbabwe Advertising Research Foundation (ZARF), established in Harare in 1997 to commission market research on behalf of advertisers, the media, publishers, advertising agencies and public relations consultancies, commissioned Topline Research Solutions (TRS), a regional market research consultancy, to carry out the ZAMPS study for three years running from 2014 to 2016.

The last national survey was conducted in 2013 and has been used for comparisons.

The Chronicle brushed aside competition from newcomers Southern Eye.

While Southern Eye’s readership is said to have increased to three percent from one percent of the adult population during the same period under review, it is still lagging behind in terms of urban and rural penetration.

The Chronicle recorded an upsurge in urban readership from 11 percent to 13 percent and rural readership growth of one percent from five to six.

On the other hand, Southern Eye’s urban readership stands at five percent from one percent last year. Its rural readership rose from zero to one percent.

Zimpapers’ flagship, the Herald, also maintained its position as the most read daily newspaper in the country increasing its readership by two percent to account for 26 percent of the country’s readers of daily newspapers.

“Herald, 24 percent to 26 percent, Daily News 12 percent to 15 percent, H-Metro 13 percent to 14 percent, NewsDay 11 percent to 13 percent, Chronicle 7 percent to 9 percent, Southern Eye 1 percent to 3 percent,” reads part of the results.

The Chronicle, the Herald and H-Metro also scored higher marks for being the most up to date newspapers.
Zimpapers’ weekly newspapers like the Sunday Mail, B-Metro, Kwayedza and Sunday News also dominated against other weeklies.

The Sunday Mail readership grew to 19 percent from 15 percent while that of B-Metro grew to 5 percent from 3 percent in the previous year.

“Sunday Mail 15 to 19 percent, B-Metro 3 to 5 percent, Kwayedza 3 to 4 percent and Sunday News 3 to 4 percent. The Standard also grew from 3 to 4 percent, Financial Gazette 1 to 3 percent, Zimbabwe Independent 1 to 2 percent, Daily News on Sunday 2 percent and the Zimbabwean 1 to 2 percent,” read the results.

Sunday News and The Sunday Mail dominated as the weekly most up to date newspapers growing from 4 to 7 percent and 26 to 30 percent respectively.

Subscriptions for the Zimpapers weeklies also grew as compared to 2013.

From zero percent: Sunday News’ household subscription is now at 2 percent.