In the best readership result for a long time, 71 magazine titles have posted increases in readership compared to 59 decreases, with major growth seen by the likes of Game Informer, Men's Fitness, Frankie and GQ.
The Roy Morgan's readership figures for the year to December 2012 are an incredibly positive counterpoint to the Audit Bureau of Circulation figures, which showed the vast majority of magazines suffering from circulation declines. In total, readership figures for all magazines excluding newspaper inserted magazines increased 1.7% year-on-year.
Roy Morgan readership figures for the year to December 2012.
The December 2012 result is a major improvement on the figures of previous readership surveys. The December 2011 results had 98 titles posting declines and 26 showing an increase.
The increases were led by computer, gaming and info tech title Hyper, owned by Next Media, which increased a whopping 83.3%. Australian Fishing Network's Freshwater Fishing Australia grew its readership by 51.6%, while Next Media's Healthy Food Guide grew 41.6%.
Other star performers were Citrus Media's Game Informer, Odysseus-owned Australian Men's Fitness, Morrison Media's Frankie, NewsLifeMedia's GQ and Bauer's Belle. GQ's 24.4% increase for the year to December 2012 marks a stark
improvement from the title's 36.5% nosedive in the readership figures
for the year to March 2012.
The magazine with the highest readership remained the Australian Women's Weekly, with over two million readers per issue. Woman's Day, Better Homes and Gardens and New Idea had the next highest readership respectively, with each pulling in well over a million readers per issue.
The categories with the strongest growth in readership were women's fashion, food & entertainment, home & garden and fishing. Computing, gaming & info tech and health & family also performed well. Fishing increased 17.2% while women's fashion grew 10.9%.
According to Magazine Publishers of Australia's executive director Robin Parkes: “Key categories have witnessed clear readership spikes demonstrating magazines continue to have loyal and engaged readers – both in print and digital formats. This reflects a general trend in society of spending more time at home, entertaining and renovating.
“The decline in circulation is a reflection of continued wavering consumer confidence and their focus on discretionary spend, however the total readership result is remarkably flat. This is a good indication of consumer interest and approval. As readership is consistent this demonstrates magazines are still resonating and relevant which is why 93% of adults still read magazines.”
“Like most media, magazine audiences are consuming our content across different platforms – be it print, web, mobile or tablet and that migration is reflected in sales and readership figures. Printed magazines however remain in robust health with 13.5 million copies of magazines sold in Australia every month.”
However, it wasn't all rosy. The mass women's, women's lifestyle and women's youth categories were all in decline, while the men's category posted a 20.3% decrease and the TV category plummeted 30.5%.
The biggest decreases were experienced by Foxtel Magazine, which fell 37.2%, and Royal Auto (Vic), which dropped 34%. Large declines in readership results were experienced by Bauer's Picture, Wheels, Zoo Weekly, Cleo, Madison and Cosmopolitan, while NewsLifeMedia's Delicious took a hit, as did Pacific Magazines' Prevention and Girlfriend.
An examination of Roy Morgan's new 'masthead readership' numbers, which combine print and online readership, were not quite as impressive as the general readership numbers. While year-on-year comparisons cannot yet be made due to the recent introduction of the masthead figures, the year to June 2012 can be compared with the year to December 2012.
In this period on period comparison, only six out of 24 titles surveyed indicated growth. Those than showed growth were Woman's Day, New Idea, Home Beautiful, The Monthly, Men's Health and Open Road (Vic).
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