92 participants from 30 countries answered the ICB survey. Half of them have been reading ICB for more than 15 years! Regarding the format, a third of the participant read it only online, a third only printed, a third uses both possibilities. This kind of results are very helpful as they help us to make decisions: in this case, keeping only the e-version (which is not an option for now) might lead to a loss of 30% of our readers.
The Choral World News and the Focus (formerly Dossier) are the most read section (30% each), while 20% of our readers did not specify but read every section with a similar interest. 78% of the survey participants are satisfied with the length of the article, while the other 21% find them too long. (We thought this proportion would be higher, so the Editorial Board already decided in Spring 2021 to limit the length of articles to 1000-1200 words).
Without surprise, the English version is being read the most (the fact the printed version is only in English might also play a role in this data point); therefore, eliminating the translations might lead to a loss of 35% of our readers. Particularly interesting were the topics the participants missed. Scientific musicology articles as well as composition analyses were often mentioned, followed by exciting responses like “human stories”, “choir management”, “resources for very young singers”, “diversity and inclusion”.
Be assured that we will include your valuable input into our next editorial decisions!
Read the full results here.