Print is average issue readership; digital is website visitation and app usage in an average 7 days.
Roy Morgan Research today releases the latest Print Readership and seven-day Cross-Platform Audience results for Australian Newspapers for the survey period 12 months to December 2014.
Not all doom and gloom for print
Average issue Print Readership of The Age in Victoria grew to 566,000 for its Mon-Fri edition (a very healthy increase of 8.0%) and 580,000 for The Sunday Age (up 3.8%), The Saturday Age remained stable.
Both weekend editions of the Canberra Times did well, with Saturday’s readership holding steady at 103,000 and Sunday’s rising to 76,000 readers (an increase of 15.2%). The Illawarra Mercury saw a modest increase in readership for its weekday editions (+6.7%) and a solid performance from the Saturday paper (+2.0%). This was matched by the Northern Territory News (Monday-Friday +5.4%; Saturday +4.0%).
One of the biggest print newspaper success stories in these challenging times was the impressive growth of Victorian edition of mX (+15.0%).
However, with the exception of the above, the overall decline in print readership of Australia’s major daily newspapers continues, with figures for 2014 down on 2013. In an average week last year, print newspapers reached 9,251,000 Australians overall, down 6.5% on 2013, when they were read by 9,892,000 people.
As they were last survey period, weekend newspapers were impacted worse than the weekday papers. Readership for Saturday papers was down 9.5% (or 559,000 people), while Sunday papers lost 477,000 readers (an 8.8% decrease). Monday-Friday papers were down 482,000 readers (a drop of 6.6%).
The changing face of Saturdays
All Saturday editions experienced declining reader numbers, with the exception of those mentioned above. The one new entrant to the market, The Saturday Paper, launched in March is reaching an average of 99,000 hard-copy readers per issue. In NSW and Victoria, it is reaching 49,000 people who are not reading the Saturday editions of the state-wide major daily newspapers.
Australian Newspaper Readership, 12 months to December 2014
(average issue readership)
| |
M-F |
M-F |
Sat |
Sat |
Sun |
Sun |
| |
December 2013 |
December 2014 |
December 2013 |
December 2014 |
December 2013 |
December 2014 |
| Newspapers |
R'ship ('000s) |
R'ship ('000s) |
R'ship ('000s) |
R'ship ('000s) |
R'ship ('000s) |
R'ship ('000s) |
| National |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The Australian |
354 |
340 |
741 |
663 |
- |
- |
| Aust. Financial Review |
234 |
197 |
158 |
127 |
- |
- |
| NSW |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Daily Telegraph |
752 |
638 |
667 |
596 |
- |
- |
| Sydney Morning Herald |
529 |
518 |
772 |
737 |
- |
- |
| Sunday Telegraph |
- |
- |
- |
- |
1,175 |
1,036 |
| The Sun-Herald |
- |
- |
- |
- |
752 |
682 |
| MX |
162 |
119 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
| Newcastle Herald |
104 |
94 |
158 |
121 |
- |
- |
| Illawarra Mercury |
45 |
48 |
49 |
50 |
- |
- |
| Canberra Times |
79 |
70 |
102 |
103 |
66 |
76 |
| The Saturday Paper (NSW) (from Jul14) |
- |
- |
- |
55 |
- |
- |
| VIC |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Herald Sun |
1,040 |
892 |
1,028 |
857 |
- |
- |
| The Age |
524 |
566 |
698 |
695 |
- |
- |
| Sunday Herald Sun |
- |
- |
- |
- |
1,033 |
903 |
| The Sunday Age |
- |
- |
- |
- |
559 |
580 |
| MX |
127 |
146 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
| Geelong Advertiser |
60 |
55 |
85 |
76 |
- |
- |
| The Saturday Paper (VIC) (from Jul14) |
- |
- |
- |
44 |
- |
- |
| QLD |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Courier-Mail |
486 |
468 |
611 |
555 |
- |
- |
| The Sunday Mail |
- |
- |
- |
- |
896 |
835 |
| MX |
61 |
43 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
| Cairns Post |
57 |
55 |
83 |
81 |
- |
- |
| Gold Coast Bulletin |
88 |
75 |
110 |
80 |
- |
- |
| Townsville Bulletin |
47 |
54 |
78 |
66 |
- |
- |
| SA |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Adelaide Advertiser |
389 |
351 |
500 |
411 |
- |
- |
| Sunday Mail |
- |
- |
- |
- |
532 |
467 |
| WA |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| West Australian |
508 |
431 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
| Weekend West |
- |
- |
664 |
593 |
- |
- |
| Sunday Times |
- |
- |
- |
- |
547 |
478 |
| Tasmania |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The Mercury |
87 |
79 |
112 |
103 |
- |
- |
| The Examiner |
58 |
56 |
76 |
68 |
- |
- |
| The Advocate |
37 |
37 |
45 |
42 |
- |
- |
| Sunday Tasmanian (Tas) |
- |
- |
- |
- |
95 |
90 |
| Sunday Examiner |
- |
- |
- |
- |
68 |
66 |
| Northern Territory |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Northern Territory News |
37 |
39 |
50 |
52 |
- |
- |
| Sunday Territorian |
- |
- |
- |
- |
35 |
30 |
Newspaper
Insert Magazines |
Readership |
Readership |
| % of Population 14+ |
('000s) |
| Dec 2013 |
Dec 2014 |
Gain/Loss |
Dec 2013 |
Dec 2014 |
% Change |
| Wish |
0.4 |
0.4 |
0.0 |
78 |
76 |
-2.6 |
| Weekend Australian Magazine |
3.9 |
3.6 |
-0.3 |
747 |
693 |
-7.2 |
| Financial Review Magazine |
2.0 |
2.3 |
0.3 |
385 |
446 |
15.8 |
| Boss |
0.6 |
0.5 |
-0.1 |
109 |
105 |
-3.7 |
| Good Weekend (NSW & Vic) |
7.5 |
6.9 |
-0.6 |
1,430 |
1,341 |
-6.2 |
| Sunday Style (NSW & Vic) |
6.1 |
5.1 |
-1.0 |
1,174 |
977 |
-16.8 |
| Sunday Life (NSW & Vic) |
5.0 |
4.7 |
-0.3 |
958 |
906 |
-5.4 |
| Sunday Telegraph TV Guide (NSW) |
4.0 |
3.3 |
-0.7 |
765 |
640 |
-16.3 |
| Sunday Herald Sun TV Guide (Vic) |
3.4 |
2.7 |
-0.7 |
644 |
517 |
-19.7 |
| Qweekend (Qld) |
2.3 |
2.0 |
-0.3 |
449 |
383 |
-14.7 |
| Sunday Mail TV Guide (Qld) |
3.0 |
2.6 |
-0.4 |
573 |
506 |
-11.7 |
| Gold Coast Eye (Qld) |
0.3 |
0.2 |
-0.1 |
53 |
45 |
-15.1 |
| Sunday Mail TV Guide (SA) |
2.0 |
1.7 |
-0.3 |
386 |
332 |
-14.0 |
| SA Weekend |
1.8 |
1.6 |
-0.2 |
346 |
310 |
-10.4 |
| Sunday Times TV Guide (WA) |
1.9 |
1.6 |
-0.3 |
365 |
304 |
-16.7 |
| STM - Sunday Times Magazine (WA) |
1.9 |
1.5 |
-0.4 |
358 |
300 |
-16.2 |
| Seven Days (WA) |
2.2 |
1.8 |
-0.4 |
428 |
347 |
-18.9 |
| West Weekend (WA) |
2.2 |
1.9 |
-0.3 |
420 |
374 |
-11.0 |
Cross-Platform Audiences
Cross Platform Audience is the number of Australians who have read or accessed individual newspaper content via print, web, or app in a 7 day period.
While the net 7 day print readership has declined for all major daily newspapers except The Age (+5.0%) and Canberra Times (+0.6%), as shown in the table below, most have seen improvements in their digital audiences.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age both showed gains in Total Cross Platform Audience. The Sydney Morning Herald increased by 6.7% to 3,494,000, The Age increased by 2.8% to 2,528,000, the Courier Mail increased by 5.4% to 1, 949,000, Canberra Times increased 3.6% to 492,000 and the Adelaide Advertiser was up 107% to 1,069,000.
There were widespread increases in digital audience as a percentage of total audience, with digital readers currently comprising around 50% of the total audience for the majority of major dailies. This proportion is considerably higher for the Canberra Times (79%), SMH (79%) and The Age (75%).
Cross Platform Audiences for Newspapers – average 7 days
|
Publication |
Print |
Digital
(web or app) |
Total Cross-Platform Audience
(print, web or app) |
Dec 2013
('000s) |
Dec 2014
('000s) |
Dec 2013
('000s) |
Dec 2014
('000s) |
Dec 2013
('000s) |
Dec 2014
('000s) |
% change in
Total Cross- Platform Audience |
|
Adelaide Advertiser |
785 |
713 |
412 |
498 |
1051 |
1069 |
1.7% |
|
Canberra Times |
158 |
159 |
354 |
387 |
475 |
492 |
3.6% |
|
Courier-Mail |
1317 |
1264 |
783 |
928 |
1849 |
1949 |
5.4% |
|
Daily Telegraph |
1791 |
1563 |
1046 |
1125 |
2594 |
2456 |
-5.3% |
|
Financial Review |
460 |
416 |
335 |
335 |
730 |
700 |
-4.1% |
|
Herald Sun |
1826 |
1615 |
1341 |
1303 |
2810 |
2611 |
-7.1% |
|
Mercury |
155 |
147 |
112 |
87 |
247 |
208 |
-15.8% |
|
Newcastle Herald |
224 |
183 |
91 |
120 |
298 |
290 |
-2.7% |
|
Sunday Times |
547 |
478 |
475 |
433 |
928 |
832 |
-10.3% |
|
Sydney Morning Herald |
1365 |
1277 |
2394 |
2753 |
3274 |
3494 |
6.7% |
|
The Age |
1035 |
1087 |
1828 |
1889 |
2460 |
2528 |
2.8% |
|
The Australian |
1044 |
989 |
1003 |
956 |
1857 |
1760 |
-5.2% |
|
West Australian |
952 |
882 |
548 |
505 |
1333 |
1236 |
-7.3% |
Print is net 7 day readership; digital is website visitation and app usage in an average 7 days. Cross-Platform Audience is the number of Australians who have read or accessed individual newspaper content via print, web or app.
Click here to see the results for
for the 12 months to December 2014.
Tim Martin, General Manager - Media, Roy Morgan Research, says:
“The trend continues towards digital readership of newspapers, with online audiences comprising more than three-quarters of some newspapers' total audience. However, our latest results show some print editions holding strong, and even growing their readership - a mighty achievement in this challenging climate.
“Roy Morgan’s ‘average issue’ print readership and ‘average 7 days’ cross-platform audience numbers are the industry standard for advertisers and media agencies looking to get a real and applicable understanding of how many Australians they can reach.
“Adding exponential depth to these readership results, Roy Morgan Research’s Single Source data is the preferred multimedia audience measurement currency used by the majority of Australian media strategy, planning and buying agencies as well as telecommunications, financial services and automotive brands.”
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