Philippines: Newspaper reading is on the increase among the wealthier socio-economic strata

Posted by Christie Silk on July 31, 2009 at 3:10 PM

A refreshing study of media habits in the Philippines has demonstrated that newspaper reading is in fact on the increase, particularly amongst the higher socio-economic classes. Moreover, largely because of the loyalty of the wealthier demographic to print, newspapers are still one of the "stickiest" media terrains for advertising.

The conclusions were drawn in the fourth annual Synovate Media Atlas, which conducted a survey of 8,000 Filipinos selected from across the country. At a press conference yesterday, the global executive director for media at Synovate, Steve Garton expressed some strong convictions, "We have to once and for all debunk the myth that newspapers are dying. They are not".

The figures are indeed soothing for both advertising and readership concerns. They show that 56% of Filipinos still chose to read advertisements in newspapers and magazines above other forms of media. The value of this exposure, or rather the "stickiness", was underlined by the socio-economic situation of the majority of this readership. Filipinos in the "A" and "B" categories- those with the greatest amounts of disposable income, are in fact reading newspapers more this year. Within this category of those surveyed, this year 64% are reading newspapers, a significant increase from the 2007-2008 percent of 56.

"Many marketers are talking about a flight to quality, and newspapers are showing their increased importance as a good medium to reach those who have money to spend," explained Garton.

The most widely read types of newspaper were the dailies and the Sunday editions. The mounting importance of the printed word and included advertisement features was explained in terms of an increasing public desire for quality. Newspapers seem to present this service to an otherwise "hard-to-reach upper scale audience".

Additionally, newspapers have the virtue of being a tangible, easy to locate, constant source of information. These characteristics also serve to account for the particular suitability of newspapers for effective advertising; they have a physical presence and the content, and advertisments, remain the same within an edition.

The survey also indicated that online and mobile technologies were furthering their consumer reach. Yet these were still considerably far behind mainstream medias in terms of their perceived and data-proven status as effective advertising platforms.

"Online is still a small fraction of the advertising budget. Those who neglect mainstream media will lose share and even go out of business. Mainstream media works," Garton asserted.

"I haven't seen such a strong shift to newspapers in Asia such as this", he commented. The likelihood that these results are somewhat surprising demonstrates the importance of national case studies in the efforts to draw an accurate picture of the global health of printed news industries.

Source: The Inquirer