Photo by Paco Murillo from the 2025 HT photo contest.
Dear Readers,
HAVANA TIMES – On behalf of our writers, photographers, editors and other contributors I want to thank you for your participation in our recent HT reader survey. Your answers gave us a better idea of our audience community and your information needs and online habits.
A total of 402 readers took the time to answer the questions. We weren’t expecting so many replies, aware that many of you are bombarded with surveys from different service providers.
The survey told us that Havana Times readers in English come mainly (82%) from the Unted States, Canada and the UK and in Spanish (50%) from Cuba, the United Sates and Spain, with the rest divided among many Latin American countries. In English a large majority (85%) of HT readers are over 54 years old and in Spanish the same age group constitutes 70% of our readers.
One statistic that surprised us refers to gender with 58% of our readers in Spanish being men and 69% of the readers in English. Such a statistic moves us to come up with strategies to increase female readership.
We found that our readers tend to have a high level of education: half the readers in English are university graduates and 23% have post-graduate degrees. Another 15% have professional or technical training. In Spanish 35% are university graduates, 29% have post graduate degrees and 18% professional or technical training.
Half of our Spanish readers visit Havana Times several times a week or daily. 83% of the readers have been HT regulars for at least one year and 58% for at least five years. In English 79% of you have been a reader for at least one year and 49% for five years or more. 58% of our readers in English visit the publication daily or several times a week.
As to your evaluation of our credibility, rigor and analysis the results were similar in the two languages: In English 84% rated HT as a good or excellent to be a credible publication. 82% found our journalistic rigor to be good or excellent. As to the depth of analysis 80% rated HT either good or excellent. In Spanish participants rated HT to have Good or Excellent credibility (80%) in Journalist Rigor (81% Good or excellent, and in the depth of Analysis (81%) Good or Excellent.
We found among our English readers the leading reason to visit Havana Times is to understand Cuba, its social and political reality. While you consider breaking news important you said what makes Havana Times different is its coverage of daily life, human interest stories, having an on the ground local perspective and coverage of topics rarely found in other media. Readers also expressed interest in keeping up with events in Nicaragua, Venezuela and other Latin America countries.
Among our Spanish readers around half said they were born in Cuba, a strong motive for their interest in the political, social and cultural situation on the island. Once again, the leading topics of interest were daily life, politics, culture, human rights and the economy.
Havana Times has never had much of an active participation or design for attracting new readers and sharing our articles and galleries on social media. The survey let us know the social media you visit where we intend to have a greater presence in the coming months.
Another of our weaknesses has been not actively requesting you share our content by email or any of the social media you share with friends. We will be encouraging you to help us reach potential readers.
The survey also revealed that many more of you would be willing to subscribe to Havana Times (it’s free with no pay wall) and we will be reaching out to those of you not already subscribing with that request.
Thanks again for taking the time to have answered our reader survey.
Circles Robinson, editor, HT
Read more on Havana Times here.
