Roy Morgan has revealed the first readership numbers for magazines and newspapers since launching its cross-platform data measurement offering last week.
In the magazine sector, Bauer’s The Australian Women’s Weekly comes out on top as the most-read magazine with 2.1million (2,070,000) million readers, with over half of its readers still coming from print. Better Homes and Gardens, a Pacific Magazines title, followed closely, with 2.1m (2,054,000) readers.
Unlike newspapers, nearly all cross-platform magazines are still read by more Australians in print than in digital form.
While ABC figures released last week showed Bauer Women’s Day lost 11.6% of its print readership taking it to 271,517 paid readers, Roy Morgan’s figures position it as the most read weekly magazine, with 1.5m (1,498,000) readers, accounting for both digital and print readers.
Pacific Magazine’s New Idea follows with 1.4m (1,374,000) readers, with a majority 1.2m (1,127,000) coming from print.
Only three titles have more people reading online than in print: Vogue (406,000 digital and 315,000 print readers, with a total audience of 705,000); Gourmet Traveller (238,000 digital, 225,000 print, for 449,000 overall); and The Monthly (161,000 digital and 154,000 print, for 282,000 total).
The new platform combines both print and digital research results from Roy Morgan Research to create a comprehensive picture of overall readership. Print data includes average issue readership and digital includes website visits and app usage in an average four weeks, except for weekly titles which are given a seven day average.
Bauer interim CEO Andreas Schoo says: “The new audience measurement platform from Roy Morgan means we can give advertisers the clearest view yet of the total audience size for all our titles across magazines and digital combined.
“As a multi-platform business this data reliably shows the continued strength of our brands in reaching consumers on the channels of their choice.”
Roy Morgan ups offering
Roy Morgan is launching Magazine Audience Accumulation, to show how a magazine's total audience 'accumulates' or grows over time as people reader their copy and pass it on to others.
Roy Moran CEO Michele Levine says: “We will be revealing to the market shortly the next stage of our partnership with Bauer Media that will transform the way magazines are planned and measured against ROI.
“Put simply, in addition to knowing how many people will have an opportunity to see their advertisement, they will now also know when they will see it.”
Newspapers; digital readership exceeds print
Roy Morgan data finds all national and capital Australian metro newspaper mastheads now reach more readers in digital than print.
The country's most-read print newspaper, Herald Sun, is only the fourth most-read overall, with 2.8m (2,837,000) readers. The Herald Sun (1.5m) and Daily Telegraph (1.5m) reach the most Australians in print in an average week.
Fairfax's Sydney Morning Herald remains Australia's most-read across print and digital combined with 4,087,000m readers total in an average week.
3.5m (3,489,000) Australians now access the Sydney Morning Herald through digital channels in an average week—85% of the masthead’s total cross-platform audience. Digital audiences include all readers via website or app, whether on computer, mobile or tablet.
News Corp's The Daily Telegraph places second in terms of overall readership. The Age has the second highest digital readership following The Sydney Morning Herald.
More than four in five readers of The Age and The Canberra Times' access content through digital; 2.3m (2,361,000) of The Age's total-cross platform audience (83%) read it on desktop, mobile and/or tablet, as do 84% of Canberra Times' audience.
The staggering digital numbers follow Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood's recent announcement the business would look to print fewer weekly newspapers, including The Age and SMH, to take a more 24/7 digital focus. Hywood said the demise of weekday newspapers was inevitable, as digital alternatives have taken over traditional newspapers, which is seen in the Roy Morgan figures.
“The enhanced cross-platform figures show that all Australian newspapers now reach a majority of their readers via digital. In both Sydney and Melbourne, News Corp’s newspapers have more print readers than their Fairfax competitors; but when we include digital reach (and therefore also out-of-state readers), both the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age surpass their counterpart,” Levine says.
Roy Morgan's new data offering is another weapon in the standoff between it and Emma data, which launched in August 2013 by NewsMediaWorks (formerly The Newspaper Works) and funded by publishers. Emma has previously been criticised for publisher's involvement in the platform.
“In balancing the pros and cons (and revenue and ROI) of reaching print and digital audiences, publishers and advertisers clearly need to have a thorough understanding of who reads only one platform or the other, who reads both, and what the proportions mean.
“For example, only around 18% of the SMH’s online audience also read print editions; but this cross-over represents a majority of print readers (51%) who also access the masthead via digital.”
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