TV has its Nielson. Radio has its Arbitron. Print has the Media Audit. Here are the readership results just reported for adults 18+ in Dallas/Fort Worth for the survey period June through August 2005, with increases and decreases from last year:
DMN Sunday 1,664,000 -1%
DMN Weekday 1,266,300 -9%
Star-Telegram Sunday 897,500 +11%
Star-Telegram Weekday 744,500 +10%
Texas Monthly 713,200 +6%
D Magazine 605,600 +2%
Dallas Business Journal 284,700 -9%
PaperCity 107,700 +102%
Modern Luxury 81,600 N/A
Some of this is surprising, some not. After the break, a few observations:
(1) The circulation woes of the DMN are well known, so its readership declines are to be expected. But the Star-Telegram pulls off quite a coup by scoring double-digit gains, which may reflect the growth in Northwest Tarrant and southern Denton counties.
(2) Texas Monthly leads D Magazine because of its strength in Fort Worth and the western suburbs. As to be expected, D’s strength lies in Dallas and its suburbs. What many people may not realize is how strong these two monthlies are against the dailies in total readership. Both D and TM can claim one-half the readership of the News. With their lower out-of-pocket cost and much higher demographics, that’s a great story for advertisers.
(3) I don’t know what’s up with the Dallas Business Journal, much less why it’s down, but I’ve got to hand it to the distribution people who are giving away PaperCity. They are obviously doing it in the right places. Maybe Modern Luxury will learn from them. It barely gets one reader per copy, compared to something like 1.5 per copy for PaperCity.
