News readership: 97 per cent of Australians continue to consume news
ThinkNewsBrands and Roy Morgan Total News figures show 20.6 million Australians over the age of 14 engage with news every month.
The latest release of Total News readership shows a slight softening for news consumption, down 0.5 per cent with 20.6 million Australians continuing to consume news in a four-week period.
The readership figures, produced by Roy Morgan for ThinkNewsBrands, refer to the 12 months to September 2022 and shows that Total News reaches 97 per cent of the population over the age of 14. Total News represents all news brands across print and digital as well as standalone news websites.
News readership is largely digitally driven with 19.6 of the 20.6 million readers engaging with news in digital channels each month. Less than 5 per cent of Australians read news solely in printed format. This is reflected in the September readership figures. While print has seen a 12.2 per cent decline in readership, due to the skew to digital news consumption, overall readership has dipped by just 0.5 per cent.
TOTAL NEWS READERSHIP
ThinkNewsBrands General Manager Vanessa Lyons said: “The Total News readership data continues to demonstrate that news has a greater reach and frequency than many people think. It is important information for agencies and advertisers providing a holistic view of the size, capability and common strengths of news for their audiences.”
Demographically, Total News continues to engage all age groups including younger audiences with 96 per cent of Australians under the age of 40 reading news each month.
READERSHIP DEMOGRAPHICS
Australia’s trusted masthead brands continue to command large audiences, as demonstrated by the below table.
TOP 10 MOST READ NEWS BRANDS
This is the first readership release following the re-engineering of Roy Morgan’s digital audience measurement data which has been updated from July 2020 onwards. The digital data now calls on a broader set of inputs while the algorithm to calculate the digital audiences has been refined.
The recalibrated digital audience data feeds into Total News to present the most accurate view of audience performance and unique audience profiling. Data can be compared year-on-year without a trend break.
Source: Roy Morgan Research, All People 14+. All audience data is based on the last 4 weeks averaged over the 12 months to September 2022.
Total News is defined as Australians aged 14+ reading news in print and/or news in digital. Digital news includes Australian publishers’ news websites/apps, Apple news and non-Australian-owned news. It also includes ABC news and Google news.
About ThinkNewsBrands
Founded by Australian media owners who, collectively, have more than 100 years of experience in producing news, ThinkNewsBrands shines a light on how and why professionally-produced premium news content is the best partner for advertisers looking to grow their brands and businesses.
Find out more: thinknewsbrands.com.au.
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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 |
