Survey says: who's reading 'Commonweal'?

Commonweal, June 18, 2004 by Grant Gallicho

About every four years since the 1980s, Commonweal has conducted a reader survey, and each one has provided a fascinating snapshot of who's reading the magazine at a given time. Our most recent survey, conducted last fall, proved no different. It consisted of thirty questions spread over eight pages. (Readers could also fill out the survey online.) One of the principal reasons periodicals conduct surveys is to provide advertisers with accurate data about potential customers. For the editors, the chief benefit is learning a lot of detailed information about our loyal readership. And we mean loyal. Pop quiz: How long have most Commonweal readers been subscribers?

  A. Two to three years?
  B. Four to six?
  C. Seven to ten?
  D. Eleven to fifteen?
  E. Fifteen-plus?

Amazingly, the answer is E. About half our subscribers have been receiving Commonweal for more than fifteen years (nearly 80 percent for more than seven). That's what you call a long-term relationship (considering the median duration of marriages in the United States is 7.2 years, we think we're doing OK). Regardless of whether you are a longtime subscriber or a new acquaintance, if you've ever found yourself furtively wanting to know what your Commonweal reading partners are like, you can stop holding your breath. We've now got the goods.

Foremost, Commonweal readers are engaged with the magazine. Of the five thousand questionnaires we sent to randomly selected subscribers, more than two thousand were returned--an unheard-of 40-percent return rate. The Commonweal staff found this heartening, but not entirely surprising. A cursory glance through the Correspondence pages of any issue demonstrates how invested our readers are in the magazine. So, what did all these invested, engaged, long-termers have to say for themselves? Lots.

For starters, they like to share. Sixty-two percent give their issues to someone else--that's called spreading the good news. Eighty-four percent said they'd read all four of the previous issues, and 35 percent said they read each new issue, on average, cover to cover (40 percent said they read three-quarters of each issue). So, we know that many of our readers are getting their subscription dollars' worth. But what do they think of the actual content? Over 90 percent agree that it's "stimulating." Given the opportunity to call us "dull," 91 percent disagreed. Our 1999 batch of reader reviews weren't quite so glowing: then, only 72 percent of subscribers said we weren't dull. Not a bad turnaround.

We must confess the editors have on occasion pounded their keyboards in frustration wondering if Rome, President George W. Bush, or Mel Gibson is listening. But, happily, our readers are. Editorials proved the most popular regular feature in the magazine (58 percent). Letters came in a strong second at 49 percent. And we had a tie for the bronze: book reviews and the Last Word. When you crank down the rating from "like very much" to a mere "like," readers' range of interest widens a bit. Book reviews, our columnists, stage and screen critics, and the Last Word, and of course, our longer articles, all fared quite well.

Commonweal readers are not only engaged, they are ecumenical and democratic in their tastes. A little more than half subscribe to the Jesuit weekly, America, and about the same number also receive their diocesan paper. Forty-five percent get the National Catholic Reporter. And 40 percent read the New York Times. The vast majority are "familiar with" a long list of publications: Catholic Digest, Crisis, First Things (15 percent of our subscribers read FT), the Nation, the National Review, New Oxford Review, the New York Review of Books (17 percent of Commonweal readers also get the NYRB), the New Republic, U.S. Catholic, the Wall Street Journal, and more.

Commonweal readers are busy people. To wit: 68.9 percent do faith-related volunteer work or ministry "at least occasionally." This percentage seems even more impressive when you consider that 76.8 percent of our readers are laypeople "not in paid ministry." The breakdown continues: 95 percent of those who answered the survey are Roman Catholic; 1.9 percent Episcopalian; 64.3 percent are men, 35.7 percent women; 14.5 percent are ordained (which might account for the high percentage of male readers); 3.2 percent professed religious; 68.2 percent have received an academic or professional graduate degree; 49.6 percent went to "both Catholic grade/high school and Catholic college"; 13.1 percent never attended Catholic schools. As you might expect, Commonweal subscribers are voracious readers (almost half buy between eleven and fifty books a year--and 2 percent buy more than a hundred!). Politically, 69.2 percent self-identify as "liberal centrist"; 8.9 percent as "conservative"; 13.4 percent said Commonweal is more liberal than they are; 17.1 percent said "less liberal"; and a healthy 69.5 percent said that politically they and the magazine were "about the same." This means we're annoying at least thirty percent of our subscribers at least fifty-one percent of the time. In opinion journalism, this is a good thing.