In an increasingly digital world, we seem to be hearing less and less positive news about print media. If you believe what you read, newspapers and magazines have been copping blows left, right and centre since the internet began, with social media only making things worse.
But it looks like things are on the up if the latest Roy Morgan report is anything to go by. According to their latest Australian Magazine Print Readership and Cross-Platform Audience results for the year to September 2016, print magazines reached 12,575,000 Australian’s (14+). This figure was up 2.7 per cent compared with last year.
Food & Entertainment was the best performing category overall with the combined reach of included titles growing 17.1 per cent. Other categories showing an increase in popularity include Sports (up 15.4 per cent), General Interest (up 6 per cent), Health & Family (up 5 per cent), Business, Financial & Airline (up 4.7 per cent), Music & Movies (up 3.1 per cent), Women’s Fashion (up 1.2 per cent), TV (up 0.7 per cent) and Home & Garden (up 0.2 per cent).
When it comes to the top 20 most read magazines, Coles Magazine tops the list, Women’s Weekly and Woman’s Day come in at fourth and fifth respectively, while New Idea and That’s Life also have some of the largest average issue readership figures at positions seventh and ninth.
The report interestingly reveals that a number of titles have thrived, perhaps in the wake of their competitor titles closing or trimming down. Cosmopolitan is up 5.9 per cent after the closure of CLEO in March, similarly, Men’s Fitness is up 21.4 per cent following a number of cuts at Men’s Health.
Cross platform readership has also expanded with digital evidently bringing a new audience to magazine brands. Across all categories, an average of 82 per cent of each title’s digital audiences are expanding on the print readership, while a number of them have a captive audience that are reading exclusively online. A couple of weeklies including Take 5 and That’s Life impressively have audiences that read both the print and online versions of the magazine.
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