MANILA, Philippines–With a million readers every day, the Philippine Daily Inquirer remains the No. 1 newspaper in the country, according to a study by Strategic Consumer and Media Incites Inc. (SCMI), a media and consumer research agency.
SCMI’s first Media Insights Study conducted in the third quarter of this year showed that the Inquirer was the newspaper of choice among yesterday broadsheet readers in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. The Inquirer was also favored by most readers from Class ABC1.
The study showed that the Inquirer was read by two-thirds of respondents (66.8 percent) who read a newspaper the day before in Urban Philippines. This is equivalent to 1.01 million readers—more than the combined readership of Manila Bulletin (603,000 readers) and Philippine Star (370,000 readers).
Manila Bulletin was read by 40 percent of respondents, who read a newspaper the day before, and Philippine Star by 24.6 percent. The percentages add up to more than 100 percent because multiple responses were allowed.
Of the more than a million Inquirer readers nationwide, 649,000 came from Luzon, 49,000 from the Visayas and 308,000 from Mindanao.
In Luzon, the Inquirer led with 649,000 readers (60.3 percent), followed by Bulletin with 375,000 (34.8 percent) and Star, 323,000 (30 percent).
In the Visayas, the Inquirer had 49,000 readers (82.4 percent), followed by Bulletin with 36,000 readers (60.3 percent) and Star, 2,000 (3.4 percent).
In Mindanao, the Inquirer accounted for 308,000 readers (83.4 percent), followed by Bulletin with 192,000 (51.9 percent) and Star, 45,000 (12.3 percent).
Among newspaper readers from Class ABC1, the Inquirer was read by 80,000 readers (40.6 percent) while the Bulletin was read by 77,000 (39.1 percent) and Star, by 65,000 (33.2 percent).
The question posted to respondents was: “Apart from today, when did you last read a copy of (newspaper title)? (Yesterday, past week and longer ago)”
The annual single-source study, which interviewed 2,000 respondents aged 10 and above in July and August, covered Metro Manila and nearby areas Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal and Pampanga; the cities of Tuguegarao, Baguio, Dagupan, Cabanatuan, Olongapo, Batangas, Puerto Princesa, Naga and Legazpi in Luzon; Metro Cebu and the cities of Iloilo, Bacolod, Dumaguete and Tacloban in the Visayas; and the cities of Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Butuan, General Santos and Zamboanga in Mindanao.
SCMI’s Media Insight study covered consumers’ media habits, lifestyle and product consumption. It had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2 percentage points.
SCMI is an independent full-service market research and professional consulting firm offering technology-based media monitoring, qualitative and quantitative market research, data analysis, and marketing consulting services.
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