Roy Morgan Magazine Readership March 2016

May 05 2016
Finding No. 6795
Topic: Press Release Readership
Country: Australia
Roy Morgan Research today releases the latest Australian Magazine Print Readership results for the year to March 2016.
The multi-media brand Better Homes and Gardens remains the country’s most-read paid-for magazine (down just 0.4% to 1,818,000). Not far behind, Australian Women’s Weekly is not only the most popular Mass Women’s magazine, but was the best performer of the group (down just 1.5% to 1,713,000).
Overall readership performance was strongest in the Food and Wine category (up 11.3% to 5,260,000). Although dominated by the two heavy-hitting supermarket titles—3,216,000 Australians read the average issue of Coles Magazine (up 26.5% compared with the year to March 2015), and 2,877,000 read Woolworth’s Fresh (up 16.3%)—others in the category scored solid gains, including Taste.com.au Magazine (up 23.8% to 530,000), Selector (up 47.1% to 100,000), and Gourmet Traveller Wine (up 5.6% to 94,000). However, the category also benefitted from relative steadiness among its other leading titles, with Recipes+ unchanged (at 393,000) and both Super Food Ideas and Delicious dipping by less than 3% each to 555,000 and 352,000 readers per average issue respectively.
The General Interest category also performed well (up 4.3% to 4,319,000), with strong gains or stability among many titles more than offsetting some relatively small declines. The category had two titles join the million-plus club during the year, with Open Road up 15.6% to 1,088,000 and National Geographic up 8.8% to 1,058,000. Nearly all other automotive club titles also held steady or improved, with only Horizons in WA down just 4.1% to 118,000. Big Issue was the only title to suffer a double-digit decline over the period, down 14.2% to 175,000.
The Health and Family category strengthened overall (up1.0% to 1,461,000), but with a wider range of results across titles: from the moderate gains for more popular magazines Healthy Food Guide (up 3.7% to 170,000), Women’s Health & Fitness (up 3.3% to 187,000), Women’s Health (up 2.8% to 336,000), and Prevention (up 1.8% to 114,000) to declines of at least 20% among some of the category’s smaller titles such as Nature & Health, Practical Parenting, and the Fitness First and Weight Watchers magazines.
Although Inside Out improved (up 10.8% to 144,000), Real Living improved even more (up 23.0% to 155,000). Both interiors titles have pulled further ahead of Vogue Living (down 19.0% to 111,000) and Belle (down 16.1% to 104,000), with recently launched title Homes+ also in the mix with 109,000 readers per average issue.
In the Women’s Lifestyle category, only Yours – a fortnightly magazine targeted to women aged 50-plus – made gains (up 5.9% to 126,000), overtaking the more youthfully skewed Cleo and NW.
View the full Magazine Readership Results
Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan Research, says:
“Magazines reach over 12 million Australians aged 14+ in print form alone.
“There has been some movement in the rankings among the Top 20 most-read titles compared with the previous Magazine Readership results in December: while the top six remains unchanged (Coles Magazine, Fresh, Better Homes and Gardens, Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day and New Idea), Open Road has now pipped National Geographic, Royal Auto has leapfrogged Road Ahead and House & Garden, and Taste and Australian Geographic have both climbed over Reader’s Digest and TV Week.
“Overall, the best-performing categories compared with a year ago have been Food and Entertainment (reaching 26.8% of Australians, up 2.4% points) and General Interest (22.0%, up 0.6% points), while the reach of both the Health and Family and Business, Financial and Airline categories have been steady.
“Total masthead readership will follow next week, incorporating enhanced cross-device audience dat