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Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
THE Chronicle continues to lead in terms of readership in the southern region of the country.

The paper maintained top position as the most read newspaper in the region in the last three months.

According to the latest Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey (Zamps) for the first half of 2017, The Chronicle recorded 60 percent in readership in the last three months, brushing aside its competitor Newsday, which recorded 29 percent. Daily News occupies third position with 20 percent readership.

The Chronicle, whose circulation covers largely Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, Matabeleland South, Masvingo and the Midlands provinces, falls under the Zimpapers Group.

According to the survey, Zimpapers flagship, The Herald dominates in terms of readership in Harare, Manicaland, Masvingo and the Midlands provinces.

However, in the last three months, all the daily newspapers which include The Chronicle, The Herald, H-Metro, Daily News and Newsday recorded a decline in terms of readership compared to the same period last year. The Chronicle went down from 17 percent last year to 13 percent this year.

Nationally, The Chronicle recorded 13 percent with its readership largely drawn from its urban market, which translates to a 20 percent market share. The Herald tops with a 25 percent national readership followed by its sister paper, H-Metro with 17 percent. Daily News and Newsday occupy third positions with 14 percent national readership.

The Chronicle is, however, still lagging behind in terms of rural penetration as it recorded seven percent readership in the last three months.

Sports news coverage by the nation’s liveliest newspaper pushed its readership up to 17 percent from 14 percent last year.

During the period under review, the dailies recorded a decrease in local news readership from 74 percent in 2016 to 63 percent this year. However, sports news readership sprang from 20 percent in 2016 to 24 percent in 2017.

The same applies to the entertainment, business and classified sections which gained a two percent increase in readership.

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 went down to 21 percent from 27 percent while that of Sunday News declined from seven percent in the previous year to five percent this year.

“Sunday Mail 27 to 21 percent, B-Metro 11 to 7 percent, Kwayedza 15 to 14 percent and Sunday News seven to five percent. The Standard also went down from five to two percent, Financial Gazette two to one percent, Zimbabwe Independent three to one  percent, Daily News on Sunday three to two percent and the Zimbabwean one to one percent,” read the results.

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.

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 so that we can serve 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 the 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.

@mashnets