A 1,000-respondent survey run in July and August 1999 by market research agency Markant found that the recently revamped Národná obroda newspaper now reaches some 130,000 readers daily, far higher than the 55,000 registered in the spring of 1999.
Národná obroda, formerly owned by eastern Slovak steelmaker VSŽ, was bought by NO Publishing last spring, and has since been the subject of an aggressive marketing campaign on Slovakia's most popular television station, the private TV Markíza. Many of Markíza's reporters write columns for the paper.
According to the survey, Národná obroda is most popular with computer-literate male readers with university educations and earning an above-average income. As opposed to other Slovak dailies, such as Pravda, Sme, Slovenská republika and Práca, Národná obroda is bought by politically neutral readers in search of easy-to-grasp, wide-ranging information provided by a highly credible source, the survey found.
