The Newspaper Advertising Bureau, the daily newspapers sales and marketing organisation, has challenged the New Zealand Television Broadcasters' claim made yesterday that television remains the most effective medium for reaching and influencing consumers. The NAB's General Manager, Robert Munro, said "Nielsen Media Research data collected for television, radio and newspapers shows that people who have read a newspaper in the past week are more likely to act upon advertising in a daily newspaper than on radio or television. Acting upon advertising means - seriously consider buying, actually purchase, decide where to purchase or talk about advertising. "Effective advertising is about the right message, the right timing and the right media placement. We are pleased the television networks' revenue has held up reasonably well despite the recession, but it's a stretch for them to claim leadership in reaching and influencing consumers when research doesn't support the claim"

Nielsen Media Research data for 2008 shows that on average 1.6 million people aged over 15 read a daily newspaper in New Zealand. Across a week all people 15+ readership of online and hardcopy Metropolitan newspapers has grown 2% to 2,070,000 in the last year.