1.4 million Australians read puzzle magazines
New research from Roy Morgan shows that leading puzzle magazines are now read by over 1.4 million Australians aged 14+ in an average month. Leading puzzle magazines are often closely associated with a higher circulation magazine such as Take 5, Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day and New Idea and help to raise the profile, and readership, of the primary magazine.
Leading puzzle magazines measured include Take 5 Mega Puzzler, Take 5 Pocket Puzzler, Australian Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book, Woman’s Day Superpuzzler, New Idea Jumbo Puzzler, Mr. Wisdom’s Whopper and Lovatts Puzzle Magazines – the leading puzzle magazines with a readership of 348,000.
Although many of the leading puzzle magazines are closely associated with a higher circulation magazine the majority of readers of puzzle magazines do not in fact also read the namesake title magazine.
Take 5 Mega Puzzler with a readership of 325,000 shares 35% of its readers with its namesake title Take 5 (Weekly) while nearly-two thirds of Take 5 Mega Puzzler’s readership (65%), don’t read Take 5 (Weekly).
For other puzzle magazines an even higher majority of their readership do not also read the namesake title. At least 70% of the readers of Australian Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book, New Idea Jumbo Puzzler, Take 5 Pocket Puzzler and Woman’s Day Superpuzzler do not also read the associated primary magazine.
Readership of puzzle magazines (blue bar) and % who are read the namesake title (dark blue) and % who do not read the namesake titles (red bar)
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), Dec. 2018-Mar 2019, n= 16,559.
Roy Morgan’s readership figures are based on personal interviews with over 50,000 Australians over the last 12 months including around 4,000 interviews each month. The full Roy Morgan March 2019 magazine readership figures are available to view here.
How psychographic factors drive which Australians read puzzle magazines?
Helix Personas is a unique and powerful consumer segmentation and data integration tool that combines sophisticated psychographic and behavioural data to classify the Australian population into 54 Personas and six Communities. Helix Personas uses a combination of Roy Morgan Single Source data and third party data sources.
This information is used to understand future buying intentions and media consumption patterns. These are easily integrated with third party datasets.
Analysing which Helix Persona Communities are more likely to buy puzzle magazines reveals the magazines have greater appeal to certain types of Australians than others.
Over two-thirds of puzzle magazine readers are Hearth & Home, Doing Fine or Fair Go
Analysis of puzzle magazine readers shows over two-thirds are in either the 400 Hearth and Home (27%), 500 Doing Fine (16%) or 600 Fair Go (26%) communities. All three of these Helix Communities are over-represented for the size of the Australian population they represent.
However, analysing readership patterns more deeply shows that different puzzle magazines hold greater or lesser appeal for different Helix Communities.
Australians in the 400 Hearth and Home community comprise the largest share of readers of several titles including Take 5 Pocket Puzzler, Woman’s Day Superpuzzler and Lovatts Puzzle Magazine.
In contrast Australians in the 600 Fair Go community comprise the largest share of readers of titles including Take 5 Mega Puzzler, Australian Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book, New Idea Jumbo Puzzle and Mr. Wisdom’s Whopper.
Net puzzle magazine readership by Helix Persona Community
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), Dec. 2018-Mar 2019, n= 16,559.
Leading titles for each Helix Persona Community
• 100 Leading Lifestyles: Woman’s Day Superpuzzler (21% of total readership);
• 200 Metrotechs: Lovatts Puzzle Magazine (11% of total readership);
• 300 Aspirationals: Mr. Wisdom’s Whopper (15% of total readership);
• 400 Hearth and Home: Lovatts Puzzle Magazine (29% of total readership);
• 500 Doing Fine: Take 5 Pocket Puzzler (21% of total readership);
• 600 Fair Go: Mr. Wisdom’s Whopper (35% of total readership).
Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, says puzzle magazines are a key draw for leading magazines including Women’s Weekly, Take 5, Woman’s Day and New Idea to provide interesting content to their readership and bring in potential new readers:
“New Roy Morgan research shows that puzzle magazines are read by over 1.4 million Australians in an average month. Given the close association puzzle magazines have with many leading women’s magazines it is no surprise that women comprise over 70% of the readership of puzzle magazines.
“Additional analysis of the readership of puzzle magazines shows that over 750,000 Australians in Capital Cities read puzzle magazines compared to just fewer than 670,000 in Country Areas. Given around two-thirds of Australians live in Capital Cities it’s clear puzzle magazines are particularly popular in Australia’s regional areas.
“The leading puzzle magazine by readership is Lovatts Puzzle Magazine, read by nearly 350,000 Australians in an average month, while other magazines including Take 5 Mega Puzzler, Take 5 Pocket Puzzler, Australian Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book, New Idea Jumbo Puzzler and Woman’s Day Superpuzzler are also read by hundreds of thousands.
“Australia’s most widely read paid magazine the Australian Women’s Weekly has a readership of 1,536,000 in the year to March 2019 and when one includes those who read the Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book the net readership grows to over 1.6 million demonstrating that the puzzle magazine is reaching a significantly different audience.
“The net readership of the four Take 5 magazines including Take 5 Weekly, Take 5 Bumper Monthly, Take 5 Mega Puzzler and Take 5 Pocket Puzzler is 1,176,000 which is a far wider audience than that of the leading individual title Take 5 Bumper Monthly read by 652,000.
“The appeal of the puzzle magazines is evident when one considers that over 70% of the readers of leading puzzle magazines Australian Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book, Take 5 Pocket Puzzler, Mr. Wisdom’s Whopper and Woman’s Day Superpuzzler do not also read the name brand magazine they are associated with. This creates significant possibilities for these magazines to appeal to a new audience.
“As well as top-line readership figures Roy Morgan collects in-depth data on Australia’s puzzle magazine readers that provides publishers and advertisers with the ability to precisely target existing and potential customers.
“To get the most value out of the data Roy Morgan’s Helix Personas is a unique and powerful consumer segmentation and data integration tool that combines sophisticated psychographic and behavioural data to classify the Australian population into 54 Personas and six communities.
“A look at the readers of puzzle magazines through the prism of Helix Personas shows that readership of puzzle magazines is dominated by Australians in the 400 Hearth and Home and 600 Fair Go communities who comprise the 53% of the readers of puzzle magazines and are the two leading communities for each of the puzzle magazines quoted above.”
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Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
