Morgan readership: Leading magazines increase audience year-on-year

• Clear majority of top 15 magazines grow their print readership

• Results for Roy Morgan Magazine Print Readership for September 2018

A total of 15,117,000 Australians aged 14+ (74.1%) read magazines whether in print or online either via the web or an app. That is up 0.7%, or 110,000, from a year ago, according to the results released today from the Roy Morgan Australian Readership report for the 12 months to September 2018.

Readership of print magazines was over 13.6 million Australians aged 14+ (66.8%), down 0.4%, or 57,000, from a year ago. These are the latest findings from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey of 50,377 Australians aged 14+ in the 12 months to September 2018.

Nine of Australia’s Top 15 magazines grew their print readership over the past year, with six of the leading titles growing their readership by at least 5% on a year ago. In addition, the new Take 5 (monthly) magazine has entered the list as the ninth most widely read magazine in Australia.

National Geographic had the strongest performance of Australia’s leading magazines, growing its print readership by 21.2% to 1,275,000 on the back of the special “Plastic or Planet” edition covered in detail by Roy Morgan here.

Australia’s two most widely read free magazines also performed well. Coles Magazine readership was up 16.2% and Fresh readership increased by 7.7%.

Better Homes & Gardens remains Australia’s most widely read paid magazine with more than 1.6 million readers.

Other leading magazines to perform strongly include Women’s Weekly (readership up by 4.1%), Royal Auto (+12.9%), Taste.com.au Magazine (+9%), Road Ahead (+8.9%), Australian Geographic (+1.1%), House & Garden (+3.6%) and, just outside the top 15, Gardening Australia was up a stunning 34.2%.

Food & Entertainment magazines continue strong growth led by Coles & Fresh

Food & Entertainment is again Australia’s best performing magazine category and is now read by 6,648,000 Australians, or 32.6% of the population – up 8.3% in the year to September 2018. Over the last year more than half of the 10 magazines in this category increased their readership.

The category continues to be dominated by the free supermarket titles, both of which saw exceptional year-on-year growth – Coles Magazine with readership of 4,618,000 (up 16.2%) and Woolworth’s Fresh now read by 4,124,000 Australians (up 7.7%).

Other titles to perform well over the past year include Gourmet Traveller Wine, which increased 19.6% to 67,000, Taste.com.au up 9% to 667,000 and Donna Hay up 1.5% to 279,000.

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