Printed magazines are in a renaissance, with figures from Roy Morgan finding Australian readership has climbed 2.7 per cent for 2016, following falls in recent years.
Statistics from the latest Australian Magazine Print Readership and Cross-Platform Audience have found more than 12.5 million Aussies have had a printed magazine in their hands this year, up 2.7 per cent from 2015 results.
According to the figures, magazines from the food and entertainment sector prove the most popular among Australians, the combined reach of its titles growing by 17 per cent.
The resurgence in printed content is partly due to the growing popularity of supermarket magazines Coles Magazine and Woolworths Fresh, the IPMG-printed titles battling it out for the top two spots, with readership soaring for 2016.
Coles Magazine landed in the hands of 31 per cent more supermarket shoppers this year, and Woolworths Fresh audiences were up by 24 per cent.
Several smaller titles also gained momentum this year, pushing the food and entertainment category’s overall advance, including Selector, up 44.9 per cent, Gourmet Traveller Wine soaring by 20 per cent and Delicious scoring 5 per cent more readers.
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Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says, “Readership of print magazines continues to grow, up 2.7 per cent year-on-year, compared with previous quarterly results in June.”
“The continued success of both Coles Magazine and Fresh highlights the increasing influence of retailers in the media space. The leading supermarkets and department stores each produce their own magazines through collaboration with the major print publishing houses.”
The research also finds an average of 82 per cent of each title’s digital audiences are expanding on the print readership. Roy Morgan also says digital allows consumers to engage with the magazine brands in more ways than one.
Weekly titles Take 5 and That’s Life have achieved high cross-over readership between their print and online versions, with more than half of Take 5’s digital readers also purchasing the magazine in print, and a third of That’s Life audiences reading both print and digital versions.
The coveted Qantas Magazine – which IPMG snatched from PMP last year – had the exact same amount of readers this year compared to last year at 440,000 per issue.
However fellow aircraft publication Jetstar magazine climbed by 24 per cent to 214,000 readers, approaching Virgin Australia Voyeur which was down 4.5 per cent to an audience of 236,000.
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