Open Access
About NRS
Data Available
Readership
NRS publishes readership estimates for over 260 titles: newspapers, newspaper supplements and magazines. For daily newspapers, NRS publishes three separate estimates: 6-day (Monday-Saturday), 5-day (Monday-Friday) and Saturday.
There are a number of readership measures available on NRS:
- Read in last 12 months
- Average Issue Readership (AIR)
- Reading Frequency
- Source of Copy
- Time Spent Reading
- Topic Interest
Read in last 12 months
This is the broadest categorisation of readership. It is anyone who has read or looked at a publication for at least 2 minutes in the past 12 months. It is important because it is the ‘filter’ question through which subsequent readership questions are asked. However, it is rarely quoted in its own right as a readership figure.
Average Issue Readership
This is the most commonly used measure of a publication’s readership. It is based on the ‘recency’ question i.e. ‘when did you last read or look at…?’ Anyone who has read the publication within the interval between one issue and the next is counted as an average issue reader i.e. read yesterday for a daily newspaper, read in the last 7 days for a weekly newspaper or magazine, read in the last 2 weeks for a fortnightly magazine, read in the last 4 weeks for a monthly magazine, read in the last 2 months for a bi-monthly magazine and read in the last 3 months for a quarterly magazine.
Reading Frequency
Reading frequency is based on the question ‘how often do you read?’ It is used to distinguish between the regular and less regular readers of a publication, as well as providing reading probabilities for calculating how many readers a publication reaches over 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. issues. The reading frequency breaks are:
- Almost Always (at least 3 issues out of 4)
- Quite Often (at least 1 issue out of 4)
- Only Occasionally (less than 1 issue out of 4)
Source of Copy
Average issue readers of a title are asked how they obtained the copy of the last issue they read, and who it was for. This is used to define Primary and Secondary readership.
| Self | Someone Else | Both | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delivered to my home for: | Primary - self |
Primary - not self |
Primary |
| Posted to my home (subscription/free) for: | Primary - self |
Primary - not self |
Primary |
| Bought it myself for: | Primary - self |
Primary - not self |
Primary |
| Picked up free in store for: | Primary - self |
Primary - not self |
Primary |
| Someone else in my household bought it for: | Primary - self |
Primary - not self |
Primary |
| Passed on or lent by someone from another household | Secondary | ||
| Office/Work Copy | Secondary | ||
| Only saw it outside my home | Secondary |
Time Spent Reading
Average issue readers of a title are asked - on a 7-point scale - approximately how much time in total they spend reading an issue of the publication by the time they have finished with it. The Time Spent Reading question was added to the Survey in January 2007, and Time Spent Reading data are now available.
Topic Interest
All respondents are asked about the topics they usually look at when reading newspapers or magazines (not specific titles, but in general). This is used as an indication of the types of publication and the features or sections within a publication that different people are likely to read.
The topics asked about are:
- Sport - broken out into 12 sub-categories
- Cars/Motoring
- Food and drink
- Home ideas, DIY
- Gardening
- Fashion/Clothes
- Film and Video
- Classical Music
- Rock/Pop/Dance Music
- Art/Books/Theatre
- Photography
- Personal Finance/Investment
- Business/Company News
- Travel and Holidays
- Science/Technology
- Computers/The Internet
- Computer Games/Games Consoles
- The Natural World/Geography
- The Countryside
- Beauty and Personal Appearance
- Health and Fitness
- Education
- Baby/Childcare/Parenting
- Women’s pages generally
- Items for sale (e.g. cars, bikes, houses)
- Jobs/Appointments
- Celebrity news and goossip
- TV programmes