Wemf: Ex-Sunday edition harms BaZ
According to WEMF, the Basler Zeitung (Baz) now has 123,000 readers. This figure is far too low: the BaZ Sunday edition, which has since been discontinued, lowers the average readership. A year ago, the situation was the opposite.
Because the Sunday edition started with a huge free circulation, BaZ benefited from greatly inflated readership figures.
By Markus Knöpfli
The new readership research Mach Basic 2013-2 of the Wemf brings it to light: The reach of the Basler Zeitung has reached an absolute low of 123'000 readers per day in its 37-year history. This is all the worse because a year ago the old, more imprecise Wemf research had still shown it a small growth to 163'000 readers.
Even if the old and the new readership study are not directly comparable with each other due to the greatly changed methodology and some other titles show even greater differences: For BaZ, the new figure is a debacle. Previously, it was able to communicate 163'000 readers to the advertising market; as of today, it must represent the figure of 123'000. A quarter less!
If the competitors AZ Medien or TagesWoche should now be pleased about these figures, they should be warned: The new BaZ value is certainly too low. Not because the Wemf survey is faulty, but because of the BaZ Sunday edition, which no longer exists. In other words, the figure of 123'000 readers reported for BaZ is virtually out of date.
Readership figures are average values
To understand this, one has to backtrack a bit: The current Wemf study was conducted from April 2012 to April 2013, i.e. at a time when BaZ was still publishing its Sunday edition (until the end of March 2013). For its study, Wemf asks around 52 people throughout Switzerland every day which titles they read the day before. This results in an average for each title, which is extrapolated to the total population.
Since Basler Zeitung Medien is the only publisher not to survey its Sunday edition separately, but to have it added to the weekday edition as the seventh edition, the readers of the Sunday edition are included in the average figure of 123'000 readers.
But it is now known that the Sunday edition fell through with the Basel public, which was also reflected in the circulation figures. There were never any official figures, and the current publishing director Sabine Galindo does not want to comment on this either. However, official documents from Tamedia's SonntagsZeitung show that it was able to take over a maximum of 40'000 subscriptions to the BaZ Sunday edition at the end of March 2013. Thus, the circulation of the Sunday edition was about a third smaller than that of the weekday BaZ (64,000 copies sold). In the meantime, the circulation was probably even lower; the BaZ competition spoke of just 5,000 subscriptions, a figure that Galindo clearly denies.
BaZ probably has about 12'000 readers more than reported
It is now clear that a significantly lower Sunday circulation lowers the average readership. This is also confirmed by Roland Gauglhofer, project manager at Wemf: "If the BaZ Sunday edition did indeed have a lower circulation, then it pulls down the weekday readership figures."
It would therefore be interesting to know how many people actually read the BaZ weekday edition. Werbewoche tried to find this out with a model calculation based on various circulation and readership scenarios. The result: depending on the scenario, the weekday BaZ readership is between 130'000 and 140'000 readers. Assuming an average of 135'000 readers, this is still a significant 12'000 readers more than the official figure.
The loss of readers continues
Admittedly, 135'000 readers are little consolation. Because even this figure represents a low point for BaZ. In other words, with or without the Sunday edition, BaZ has lost more readers in any case. Given its SVP-affiliated orientation, this is not surprising. But the erosion is proceeding somewhat more slowly than the new value would have us believe.
Werbewoche readers may remember: This is not the first time that the Sunday edition has influenced BaZ reach. This was also the case a year ago, when BaZ reported slight growth to 163'000 readers. However, the figure was too high then because the Sunday edition was launched in the last quarter of the Wemf survey period and was widely distributed from January to March 2012 with a free circulation of 240'000 copies. The advertising week also calculated at that time and found that the free circulation, which was four times higher than the normal weekday circulation, was able to push the average readership up sharply. Effectively, according to the model calculation of Werbewoche, BaZ came to 142,000 to 153,000 readers at that time.
The official BaZ reach erosion in recent years shows the following series of figures: 2010: 175,000 readers; 2011: 161,000 readers; 2012: 163,000 readers. And 2013 (but not directly comparable): 123 000 readers.
However, this sequence of figures should be closer to the effective development of the weekday BaZ: 2010: 175,000 readers; 2011: 161,000 readers; 2012: approx. 148,000 readers. And 2013 (not directly comparable): approx. 135 000 readers.
On the subject: Wemf - Little movement in the newspaper hit parade
Image: Keystone
