Roy Morgan Magazine Readership and Cross-Platform Audiences for September 2014

Roy Morgan Research today releases the latest Australian Magazine Readership results for the year to September 2014. 12,588,000 Australians (14+) now read one or more magazines, up 0.5% since this time last year. 

Mags a million

Only 7000 readers now separate Better Homes and Gardens and Australian Women’s Weekly as they vie for the top spot among newsstand magazines. Readership of Better Homes and Gardens has grown 4.2% since September last year to 1,835,000 and the Women’s Weekly is steady at 1,828,000 readers, buoyed in part by the recent strong result for its much-discussed Turia Pitt cover story issue in July. Woman’s Day remains the country’s most-read weekly magazine, ahead of New Idea with 1,255,000.

Global content, local readers

Taking fifth spot among paid-for magazines is National Geographic, which scored the largest proportion gain of any magazine—up 36% to 1,130,000, an additional 299,000 readers per average issue since September last year. Australian Geographic also scored double-digit proportional growth, up 14.8% to 482,000. RM Williams Outback was the sixth fastest-growing magazine, up 28.3% to 245,000 readers. 

Registering interest

While pushing the trolley, waiting at the check-out, or at home with a full cupboard and fridge, the two free supermarket titles continue to reach more Australians than any other magazine. Coles Magazine leads with 2,809,000 readers per average issue but Woolworths’ Fresh magazine is up 20.8% year-on-year to 2,249,000.

New magazine launch of the year

Winner of the recent Australian Magazine Award for Launch of the Year, Wine Companion gained an extra 5000 readers since its debut Readership result in June (up to 65,000), while other Launch category finalists Elle and Taste.com.au reached wide in the highly competitive fashion and food categories respectively. Pitched at a defined audience of women over 50, Bauer’s Yours magazine makes its Roy Morgan Readership debut with 100,000 readers.  

Dressed for success

Marie Claire continues to lead the pack with 412,000 readers, while Women's Fashion Award winner Frankie (up 11.2% to 348,000) has cemented second place ahead of Vogue Australia (down 7.8% to 309.000). With a 6.3% gain to 168,000, Harper’s Bazaar has just pipped InStyle (166,000) for fourth—but both will need to keep an eye on newcomer Elle in 2015.

Home-grown favourites 

Not only were three of the 12 Home and Garden titles among the country’s Top 20 fastest growing magazines (Home Design, Handyman and Belle), but a further five made gains—including Real Living, last week crowned Australia’s Magazine of the Year.

Food, glorious food

The star-performer in the Food category is SBS’s Feast magazine, which increased its readership by 34.6% to 214,000 against a competitive backdrop where leaders Delicious, Donna Hay, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Recipes+ and Super Food Ideas all dipped and recent entry Taste.com.au quickly gobbled up 406,000 readers.

Big Issues and Big Questions 

But many Aussies are also reading about topics beyond their homes, clothes, dinners and wine. Readership of Big Issue is up 24.6% to 233,000, New Scientist is up 11.1% to 321,000 and Cosmos is up 3.4% to 91,000.

Cross-Platform Audiences

Many magazines have again posted strong gains in the number of Australians who visit their website or use their app. Harper’s Bazaar increased its audience across both print and digital, scoring the largest total cross-platform audience increase (up 21.6% to 245,000). Better Home and Gardens also notched up increases across both platforms, resulting in a 3.8% boost in total audience past the two million mark.  

In an average four weeks, twice as people now read Marie Claire by web or app as did a year ago, giving the magazine a 13.0% increase in overall audience to 557,000, despite a small print loss.

Digital growth for Cosmopolitan, Famous, Gourmet Traveller, Reader’s Digest and Who also more than offset any print declines to provide each with bigger audiences overall.  

Cross-Platform Audiences for Magazines

Print is average issue readership; digital is website visitation and app usage in an average 4 weeks for monthly magazines and  average 7 days for weekly magazines (denoted by *).

Click here to see all the results for
Magazine Print Readership or Total Magazine Cross-Platform Audiences
for the 12 months to September 2014.

Tim Martin, General Manager - Media, Roy Morgan Research, says:

“These latest Roy Morgan results demonstrate Australians continue to read high quality magazine titles with high quality content—whether old favourites or exciting new publications. 

“Each magazine appeals at heart to a well-defined audience with an interest in its particular topic, whether that’s fashion, home, nature and science, food and wine, or finance. But while many Australians continue to be drawn to the varied content of mass women’s magazines (and will flick through any they find), others only ever want to read about four wheel drives, or fitness, or TV soap operas.

“Roy Morgan Research’s Single Source data is the preferred multi-media audience measurement currency used by the majority of Australian media strategy, planning and buying agencies and telecommunications, financial services and automotive brands.”

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