The STAR is NCR’s no. 1 newspaper

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine STAR has emerged as the most-read newspaper in Metro Manila for the third quarter of 2017, according to results of the latest Consumer and Media View (CMV) survey conducted by leading global information and measurement firm The Nielsen Co.

Nielsen’s survey from July to September 2017 revealed that The STAR overtook closest competitors Philippine Daily Inquirer and Manila Bulletin in readership in Metro Manila by 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points, respectively.

In Mega Manila, it’s still a tight race for readership supremacy among the three competing newspapers.

Aside from The STAR, Filipino-language daily tabloid Pilipino Star Ngayon (PSN) also led closest competitors Bulgar and Abante in Mega Manila and Luzon, marking the first time in over a decade that PSN registered a lead in the tabloid race in the area.

In online news consumption, about 4.11 million Filipinos are consuming their news articles online in the past 12 months, 66 percent of whom are weekly online readers.

The same survey also showed that philstar.com, the official news website of The Philippine STAR, significantly grew its online visits during the past 12 months and has a large opportunity to become the go-to news website in the future.

The Nielsen Consumer and Media View is a comprehensive study on media habits, product usage and lifestyle of consumers in Metro Manila and 56 other large cities and municipalities in balance urban Philippines. Data used in the study were gathered from door-to-door personal interviews conducted quarterly among 10,000 male/female probability respondents aged 10 years and older, across all socio-economic classes (ABCDE) nationwide.

Owing to leadership in the broadsheet and tabloid categories, the Philstar Media Group continued to be the preferred newspaper brand of print advertisers.

Of total ads spent in newspapers nationwide, 42 percent were placed in titles owned by the multimedia company, which include The STAR, Pilipino Star Ngayon, business daily BusinessWorld and Cebu-based regional newspaper The Freeman.

The STAR has been the leading broadsheet in terms of advertising revenue since 2007.

In response to the results of Nielsen’s study, Philstar Media Group EVP Lucien Dy Tioco said, “This latest development is a huge boost not only in making us the absolute no.1 paper nationwide but also as the country’s biggest newspaper-based multimedia organization. All the hard work of our team is paying off to make The STAR the most relevant and viable newspaper in the changed landscape.”

PhilSTAR Media Group is the largest multimedia company in the country, owning six newspaper titles nationwide. Its parent company, MediaQuest Holdings Inc., is the media conglomerate of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), which is owned by business tycoon Manuel Pangilinan.