15 million Australians read magazines across print & online

A total of 12,565,000 Australians aged 14+ (62.5 per cent) read print magazines – down 0.7 per cent or 93,000, from a year ago – according to the results released today from the Roy Morgan Australian Magazine Readership report for the 12 months to December 2017.

However, the audience reach of magazines is extended to 15 million Australians 14+ when you include magazine reading online (either via the web or an app).

The withdrawal of major publishers from audited circulation results for magazines just over a year ago means Roy Morgan's readership results continue to be the only truly independent measure of magazine performance now available.

These are the latest findings from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey of 50,139 Australians aged 14+ over the 12 months to December 2017.

Top 15 Magazines: All Categories – Print Readership

Australia's most widely read magazines were impressive performers over the past year as Coles Magazine and Fresh each increased their readership by 11.3 per cent and 13.1 per cent respectively with similarly strong increases by Road Ahead (Qld), and Gardening Australia which is just outside the top 15.

Full Magazine Readership Results available to view here.

Women's Fashion Magazines – again the fastest growing category

Women’s Fashion magazines have led the way in the 12 months to December 2017 readership results with the largest year-on-year category growth – up an impressive 9.6 per cent –to be the seventh most read category overall at 1,267,000 or 6.3 per cent of the population.

Category leader Frankie was the fastest growing Women's Fashion magazine increasing 19.7 per cent to a readership of 407,000 followed by Elle magazine, now read by 171,000 (up 17.1 per cent). Vogue Australia was also a strong performer increasing its readership to 355,000 (up 8.9 per cent).

The five most read categories of magazines

Food & Entertainment, Australia’s most loved magazine category, grew strongly in 2017

Food and entertainment is one of Australia's fastest growing magazine categories and is now read by 6,276,000 Australians, or 31.2% of the population, up 6.7 per cent in the year to December 2017.

This category is dominated by the free supermarket titles both of which saw exceptional year-on-year growth - Coles Magazine with readership of 4,152,000 (up 11.3 per cent) and Woolworth’s Fresh now read by 3,875,000 (up 13.1 per cent).

General interest magazines

4,484,000 Australians, or 22.3% of the population, read at least one general interest magazine (down 0.8 per cent) with the leading titles being National Geographic with readership of 1,061,000 (down 3.4 per cent).

In addition, Road Ahead (Qld) has performed strongly with readership up 13.2 per cent to 628,000, although still behind leading motoring club titles Open Road (NSW) with readership of 1,051,000 (down 6.9 per cent) and Royal Auto (Vic) read by 638,000 (down 0.6 per cent).

Mass Women’s magazines

Although the readership of Mass Women’s magazines has decreased in 2017 (down 5.3 per cent from a year ago) a significant 3,356,000 Australians, equal to 16.7% of the population, continue to read these titles.

Women’s Weekly remains the clear category leader with readership of 1,494,000 (down 7.7 per cent) ahead of Woman’s Day virtually unchanged from 12 months ago on 1,303,000 (down 0.8 per cent) and New Idea on 1,079,000 (down 5.8 percent). Both That’s Life on 657,000 (down 5.2 per cent) and Take 5 on 495,000 (down 6.3 per cent) maintain significant readerships.

Home & Garden magazines

The fourth most popular category of magazines remains Home & Garden publications, despite a drop of 4.4 per cent in the last 12 months. Almost three million (2,959,000) Australians now read at least one magazine in this category equal to 14.7% of the population.

Several magazines managed to perform strongly over the year led by Gardening Australia increasing 14.8 per cent to 449,000, Country Style up 14.0 per cent to 293,000, Vogue Living up 17.9 per cent to 132,000 and Home Design – up 11.5 per cent to 87,000.

Better Homes and Gardens maintains the dominant position in the category with a readership of 1,707,000 (down 7.3 per cent) ahead of House and Garden on 527,000 (down 16.7 per cent).

Business, Financial & Airline magazines

Qantas Magazine remains the lead title in the category with readership of 384,000 (down 17.8 per cent) just ahead of New Scientist on 370,000 (down 9.1 per cent) and Time magazine on 344,000 (down 1.7 per cent).

Readership in this category declined over the past year, down 7.7 per cent to 1,655,000 Australians.

Other magazine titles to perform strongly included health & family focused magazine Wellbeing up 25.3 per cent to a readership of 109,000 and automotive magazine Wheels up 18.3 per cent to a readership of 291,000.

Magazine Cross-Platform Audience

Of Australia’s leading 10 magazines ranked by cross-platform audience seven of the ten retain a significantly larger readership via their print editions than their digital offerings – a clear contrast to their print newspaper cousins, although this picture is slowly changing as more magazine publishers expand and refine their online offerings.

Just under a year ago many of Bauer Media’s magazine brands (including Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day, Good Health, Mother & Baby, Take 5 and others) consolidated their online presence under category banners such as Now to Love which has a digital audience of 887,000. The results in the cross platform table below reflect this new positioning and therefore year on year comparisons are not made.

Top 10 Magazines – Total Cross-Platform Audience

Full Magazine Total Cross-Platform Audience results available to view here.

Total cross-platform audience includes print – average issue readership and digital – website visitation and app usage in an average 4 weeks, except for weekly titles which are in an average 7 days (denoted by *). #For additional detail on the platforms available for each magazine visit the Roy Morgan website.

Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, says that with 15 million Australians reading magazines whether in print or online the medium retains a key role in reaching consumers increasingly ‘deluged’ by an abundance of choice:

To learn more about Roy Morgan’s Readership research, call (+61) (3) 9224 5309 or email askroymorgan@roymorgan.com.

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