In its first-ever nationwide survey on newspaper readers in the country, Synovate declares the Philippine Daily Inquirer the Filipinos’ number one broadsheet for its Nationwide Urban Media Atlas for Wave 1 of 2007-2008.
The London-based market research firm revealed Inquirer’s average readership of 660, 221 per issue on weekdays, almost 100,000 more than The Philippine Star at 570,559 per issue and Manila Bulletin at 518,184.
The Inquirer trounced its competition daily both within and outside the Greater Manila Area including Metro Manila and adjacent cities, and in all urban areas covered by Synovate across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. In GMA, Inquirer readership averaged over 553,000 compared to Star’s 486,000 average per issue and Bulletin’s 450,000.
The Synovate study findings coincides with the release of the Nielsen Media Research survey results that showed Inquirer leading in readership by 9 percentage points over its nearest competitor for Quarter 1 this year. The lead, covering almost 200,000 readers more than second-placing Star, was an increase from the 6 percentage point-lead in 2007, the largest gap between leading broadsheets since 2002.
Also, according to Synovate, 52 percent of the ABC1 class of yesterday broadsheet readers prefers Inquirer over Star, which got 42 percent of the demographic, and 37 percent for Bulletin.
The recent survey results of both Synovate and Nielsen were also released at the same time the Inquirer announced its decision to absorb rising newspaper production and delivery costs, and retain its original cover price of P18 per issue on weekdays, and P20 on weekends, a feat its biggest competitors have not been able to accomplish.
