Encountered by many New Zealanders at airports, coffee shops or grandparents homes, Reader’s Digest New Zealand has announced it will stop publishing a printed edition after 75 years.
Reader’s Digest NZ will now only be available online, with the Covid-19 pandemic blamed for the demise of the printed version.
Sheron White, the general manager of publish and sales for Asia Pacific Reader’s Digest confirmed to RNZ’s Checkpoint the print edition had been discontinued.
“We tried everything to keep it going but it just wasn’t feasible anymore,” White said.
Reader’s Digest first took off in the United States and spread across the world, including New Zealand. At its height, White said the magazine was in 51 countries and printed in 21 different languages.
But in recent years, those numbers had come down a lot. White said at its peak between 100,000 to 150,000 copies were being sold in New Zealand, but after the Covid-19 pandemic this had dropped to about 30,000.
“Covid killed the magazine,” White said, noting the magazine was often sold and read at airports and during flight travel which came to a screeching halt in 2020.
White said one positive of the magazine now being only available online was it would now be free to access. She said at this stage they had about 90,000 people in New Zealand who subscribed to the email newsletter.
“Our content hasn’t changed much over the years. We tried to write stories that were short, inspiring, make you laugh, make you cry… we try to make the stories hopeful even if it is about a sad topic.”
White remembered some of their best-selling editions had been ones that had cover stories involving anything to do with the British royal family. She said another big one had been an edition speaking about former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond being in a near fatal crash in 2006.
More recently, White said and edition last year that had done well had a cover story about someone’s mother getting scammed out of all her money.
The discontinuation of the print edition had been advertised in newspapers, social media notices and a letter had been sent out to all subscribers, White said.
“We’re tying our best to be really transparent.”
rnz.co.nz
