The latest Roy Morgan readership figures have been released, showing that Total News Publishing continues to reach 97% of, or 21.5 million, Australians aged 14+ each month.
Australians record 67 million interactions with news per week, and three in five news readers read three or more categories in addition to general and breaking news. The most popular were Property, Sport, and Lifestyle & Health.
State and territory mastheads have recorded large readership numbers outside their local markets, with ThinkNewsBrands attributing this to digital accessibility. Readership of state-based titles saw an incremental reach of up to +137% and most state titles saw a doubling of readership.
Highlighting this, The Sydney Morning Herald has come in as the country’s most-read news brand, with a cross-platform readership of 7.27 million readers, followed by The Age, with a cross-platform readership of 4.7 million.
Executive editor of Nine’s metro mastheads, Luke McIlveen, said: “The news cycle has been relentless in the first quarter of 2024, and the millions of readers who turn to our mastheads for quality and accuracy have shown their willingness to invest in premium journalism.
“We’re delighted with the subscription growth across The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and we will continue to deliver the thoughtful, independent journalism our readers expect.”
The data went on to show that the behaviours of special interest category readers prove the strength of Total News Publishing in engaging audiences.
Readers across the top titles within the Auto, Business & Finance, and Lifestyle & Health news categories are 20%-35% more likely than the general population to have high discretionary spending.
Business category readers are also significantly more likely to be very confident in their financial situation (36% more likely than the general population).
Also from Nine, The Australian Financial Review came in as the country’s most-read premium business masthead, recording a cross-platform readership of 3.5 million people.
The AFR’s editor-in-chief, Michael Stutchbury, said the masthead’s newsroom “Is particularly pleased with the success of our digital strategy, shown by four consecutive quarters of growth in our digital-only audience.
“With our digital-only audience growing by 2.4% a year, the Financial Review has the biggest digital audience of any national newspaper brand.”
Reflecting on the results, ThinkNewsBrands CEO, Vanessa Lyons said the reach of news means “advertisers can access any audience they’re after via Total News Publishing.”
“News is ‘lean-in’ premium content. Audiences aren’t scrolling past it, they’re actively engaged, and that means much higher engagement for ads placed within news.
“At a time when ROI has never been more important, the data shows news delivers the right kinds of high quality commercially favourable audiences for advertisers.”