An exceptional 12 magazine categories enjoy growth over the last year led by Food & Entertainment, General Interest, Home & Garden, Health & Family, Women’s Fashion and Women’s Lifestyle – all with readership up on 2021

15 million Australians read magazines in print and online

Now 11.3 million Australians aged 14+ (52.8%) read print magazines, up 1.7 per cent on a year ago, according to the results released today from the Roy Morgan Australian Readership report for the 12 months to December 2022.

This market broadens to 15 million Australians aged 14+ (70.3%) who read magazines in print or online either via the web or an app, a small drop of 3.6 per cent from a year ago. These are the latest findings from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey of 65,928 Australians aged 14+ in the 12 months to December 2022.

Print readership increased for 12 magazine categories compared to a year ago including Food & Entertainment, Home & Garden, Health & Family, Women’s Fashion & Lifestyle and more

There were increases in print readership for over two-thirds of the 17 magazine categories during 2022, a year during which restrctions eased considerably following the extensive lockdowns of 2021.

The most widely read category of Food & Entertainment magazines increased its print readership by 1.6 per cent to 7,233,000 ahead of General Interest magazines with a readership of 4,131,000, up 1.2 per cent.

The print readership of Health & Family magazines, the fifth most widely read magazine category, increased by over a quarter, up 27.3 per cent, to 1,338,000 and the third most widely read Home & Garden category, was up 4.7 per cent to a readership of 3,921,000.

The fourth most widely read category is Mass Women’s Magazines with a print readership of 2,733,000 while there were big improvements in Women’s Lifestyle, up 18.4 per cent to 361,000, Women’s Fashion, up 15.6 per cent to 875,000 and Motoring, up 6.8 per cent to 930,000.

Five of the top 10 magazines increased their print readership over the past year with Better Homes & Gardens and Australian Women’s Weekly again the most widely read paid magazines

Exactly half of the top 10 most widely read magazines increased their print readership over the last year and 12 out of the top 25.

Better Homes & Gardens is Australia’s most widely read paid magazine with print readership of 1,689,000, up 4.2 per cent on a year ago ahead of the Australian Women’s Weekly on 1,258,000. These two magazines continue to be the only two paid magazines with a readership of over 1 million.

In addition, National Geographic has an impressive print readership of 884,000 to be Australia’s third most widely read paid magazine ahead of Woman’s Day, up 4.6 per cent to 767,000 just ahead of Taste.com.au Magazine with a print readership of 755,000.

Coles magazine & Fresh Ideas are the most widely read with around 4.8 million readers

Australia's two most widely read free magazines are Coles magazine with a print readership of 4,865,000 just ahead of Fresh Ideas (from Woolworths) with a readership of 4,798,000, up 3.3 per cent.

Bunnings magazine is the third most widely read free magazine with a print readership of 1,633,000, up 8.9 per cent on a year ago, ahead of the NRMA’s magazine Open Road (NSW) which rounds out the top four free magazines with a readership of 1,329,000, up an impressive 13.7 per cent on a year ago – the largest increase for any of the top 15 magazines.

Other magazines to increase their print readership over the past year included New Idea, up 1.4 per cent to 588,000, Take 5 (Weekly), up 2.3 per cent to 482,000, Qantas Magazine, up a large 22.7 per cent to 384,000, TV Week, up 8.6 per cent to 378,000, Vogue Australia, up 11.9 per cent to 377,000, Men’s Health, up a large 42.6 per cent to 368,000 and Street Machine up 6.4 per cent to 298,000.

Top 25 Magazines by print readership – December 2022

Full Magazine Print Readership Results available to view here.

*Reporting period covers in-flight distribution.

The five most read categories of magazines by print readership

• Food & Entertainment (7,233,000 Australians, 33.9% of the population);
• General Interest (4,131,000 Australians, 19.4% of the population);
• Home & Garden (3,921,000 Australians, 18.4% of the population);
• Mass Women’s (2,733,000 Australians, 12.8% of the population);
• Health & Family (1,338,000 Australians, 6.3% of the population).

Food & Entertainment magazines number one with total print readership of over 7.2 million

Food & Entertainment is again Australia's best performing magazine category and is now read by 7,233,000 Australians, or 33.9% of the population – over 3 million ahead of any other category. This is an increase of 113,000, up 1.6 per cent, on a year ago with a majority of eight out of the 11 titles in this category increasing their print readership during 2022.

The free supermarket titles remain the clear leaders in the category led by Coles magazine with a print readership of 4,865,000 just ahead of the second-placed Woolworth’s Fresh Ideas now read by 4,798,000 Australians, up 155,000 (up 3.3 per cent).

The most widely read paid magazine is Taste.com.au magazine with a readership of 755,000 while there were impressive increases for Delicious, up 2.6 per cent to 279,000 and Australian Gourmet Traveller, up 11.7 per cent to readership of 210,000.

Magazines to increase their readership also included New Idea Food, up 39.2 per cent to 103,000, Gourmet Traveller Wine, up 27.5 per cent to 102,000, Cooking with Australian Women’s Weekly, up 4.3 per cent to 97,000, Halliday (was Wine Companion), up 59.5 per cent to 59,000 and Selector, up 26.5 per cent to 43,000.

Print readership of General Interest magazines increases to over 4.1 million during 2022

4,131,000 Australians, or 19.4% of the population, read at least one of the general interest magazines, up 49,000 (up 1.2 per cent) on a year ago. Of the 14 magazines in the category, six increased their print readership from a year ago and one was unchanged.

National Geographic was easily the most widely read paid magazine in the category with a print readership of 884,000, ahead of the second-placed Australian Geographic with a print readership of 436,000 and Reader’s Digest Australia in third with a print readership of 346,000.

Several magazines recorded large print readership increases led by Big Issue, up 9.6 per cent to 263,000, Australian Traveller, up 9.9 per cent to 155,000, Vacations & Travel, up 13.2 per cent to 146,000 and T Australia: The New York Times Style Magazine, up 0.9 per cent to 113,000.

There were also strong performances by several motoring magazines: Open Road (NSW) read by 1,329,000 (up 13.7 per cent), Road Ahead (Qld) now read by 645,000, Horizons (WA) read by 268,000 and SA Motor (SA) read by 240,000 (up 15.4 per cent).

Home & Garden magazines are in a clear third place read by over 3.9 million Australians

Home & Garden magazines are now read by 3,921,000 Australians, up 176,000 (up 4.7 per cent) on a year ago accounting for over one-in-six Australians. There were six magazines in the category to increase their print readership on a year ago.

Australia’s most widely read paid magazine is again Better Homes & Gardens with a print readership of 1,689,000 – over 400,000 more than any other paid magazine and up 4.2 per cent on a year ago.

The second most widely read is the freely available Bunnings magazine which is now read by 1,633,000, up 8.9 per cent on a year ago, and is the only other magazine in the category with a readership of over 1 million.

Other well-known and widely read magazines in this category include House & Garden with an impressive readership of 613,000, Gardening Australia with a readership of 441,000, Home Beautiful with a readership of 293,000 and Vogue Living with a readership of 221,000.

Other magazines to grow their print readership over the last year were Grand Designs Australia, up 21.2 per cent to 177,000, Organic Gardener, up 7.5 per cent to 157,000 and Inside Out, up 8 per cent to 121,000.

Mass Women’s magazines are read by over 2.7 million Australians in 2022

Mass Women’s magazines are now read by 2,733,000 Australians equal to 12.8 per cent of the population and include five magazines read by more than 500,000 people – more than any other category.

Easily the most widely read magazine in the category is Australian Women’s Weekly with a print readership of 1,258,000 ahead of second-placed Woman’s Day with a readership of 767,000, up 4.6 per cent on a year ago and third-placed New Idea with a readership of 588,000, up 1.4 per cent.

The popular ‘competition-focused’ magazines are also widely read led by Take 5 Bumper Monthly with a readership of 556,000, That’s Life! Mega Monthly read by 537,000, Take 5 (Weekly) with a readership of 482,000, up 2.3 per cent on a year ago and That’s Life read by 478,000.

Health & Family magazines increase their print readership by over 25% from a year ago

Overall the Health & Family magazines print readership increased by a substantial 27.3 per cent to 1,338,000 (6.3% of the population) – easily the largest increase of any of the major magazine categories.

Five of the six continuing magazines in the category experienced an increase in print readership over the last year led by Diabetic Living, up 40.9 per cent to a readership of 248,000.

There were other large increases in print readership for Wellbeing, up 33.1 per cent to 169,000, Women’s Health, up 22.2 per cent to 281,000, Healthy Food Guide, up 18.5 per cent to 243,000 and Prevention, up 8.6 per cent to 76,000.

Women’s Fashion and Women’s Lifestyle magazine categories increase readership

There was growth in several smaller magazine categories with the Women’s Fashion, Women’s Lifestyle, Business, Financial & Airline, Motoring, Men’s Lifestyle, Music & Movies, Motorcycle and Crafts categories all increasing their print readership in the 12 months to December 2022.

Women’s Fashion magazines performed well over the last year increasing category readership by 15.6 per cent to 875,000. All three continuing magazines increased their readership led by the most widely read magazine in the category, Vogue Australia, up 11.9 per cent to 377,000. Also increasing were Marie Claire, up 9.1 per cent to 265,000 and Frankie, up 7.1 per cent to 255,000. The relaunched Harper’s Bazaar has a readership of 146,000.

Women’s Lifestyle magazines were a standout performer over the last year growing overall print readership by 18.4 per cent to 361,000. All three magazines in the category increased their readership on a year ago led by the most widely read magazine in the category, Who, with a readership of 157,000, up 16.3 per cent, ahead of English Woman’s Weekly which increased its readership by 40 per cent to 119,000 and MindFood with readership up 8.6 per cent to 101,000.

Business, Financial & Airline magazines increased their readership by 15.3 per cent to 1,072,000 during 2022 led by Qantas Magazine, up 22.7 per cent to 384,000, The Monthly, up 23.7 per cent to 172,000, New Scientist, up 13.8 per cent to 214,000 and Money Magazine, up 5.5 per cent to 212,000.

Motoring magazines are the seventh most widely read magazine category and experienced growth of 6.8 per cent over the past year for an overall print readership of 930,000, or 4.4% of the population with four of the five magazines in the category increasing their readership over the past year.

The magazines to increase their readership included Street Machine, up 6.4 per cent to 298,000, Wheels, up a large 21.4 per cent to 255,000, Just Cars, up 0.9 per cent to 221,000 and Unique Cars, up 12.8 per cent to 211,000. Another of the widely read magazines in the category is 4x4 Australia, read by 223,000.

Other magazines to perform strongly included TV Week, up 8.6 per cent to 378,000, Men’s Health, up 42.6 per cent to 368,000, Rolling Stone, up 17.3 per cent to 224,000, APC, up 40.8 per cent to 100,000, PC Powerplay, up 7.4 per cent to 87,000, Homespun, up 32.1 per cent to 74,000, Australian Motorcycle News, up 8.8 per cent to 111,000, Dirt Action, up 29.5 per cent to 57,000 and Road Rider, up 11.6 per cent to 48,000.

Are Media’s ‘Now to Love’ digital platform is accessed by more than 1.6 million Australians

The results for the 12 months to December 2022 for Magazine Publishers are impressive with the 4 week digital platform audience data showing Are Media’s ‘Now to Love’ website attracting an audience of more than 1.67 million Australians in an average 4 week period. Are Media’s ‘Now to Love’ platform allows advertisers to reach their audience in new ways with innovative online offerings.

Many of Are Media’s magazine brands (including Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day, Take 5 and TV Week) have consolidated their online presence on the ‘Now to Love’ platform which adds incremental reach to already strong print based publications.

Of those magazines on the ‘Now to Love’ website Woman’s Day reaches a total cross-platform audience of around 3 million people while Australian Women’s Weekly reaches well over 2.7 million people.

Other magazines with large cross-platform audiences include News Corp’s Taste.com.au Magazine with a total audience of over 3.9 million, Are Media’s Take 5 (weekly) with a total audience of over 2.3 million, TV Week with a total audience of almost 2.3 million, Better Homes & Gardens and Take 5 Bumper Monthly with over 2.1 million readers and New Idea with over 1.9 milllion readers in an average 4 weeks in the 12 months to December 2022.

This is the second readership release following the re-engineering of Roy Morgan’s digital audience measurement data. All digital data now calls on a broader set of inputs while the algorithm to calculate the digital audiences has been refined. Revised from July 2020, data can be compared year-on-year without a trend break.

Top 15 Magazines – Total Cross-Platform Audience

Full Magazine Total Cross-Platform Audience results available to view here.

Total cross-platform audience includes print – average issue readership and digital – website visitation and app usage in an average 4 weeks.. #For additional detail on the platforms available for each magazine visit the Roy Morgan website. *Open Road (NSW) has a standalone digital audience below the minimum threshold.

Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, says the readership of magazines increased significantly during 2022 with over two-thirds of magazine categories (12/17) increasing their readership compared to the heavily pandemic impacted 2021:

“The latest Roy Morgan readership survey shows 15 million Australians (over 70% of all Australians aged 14+) now read magazines whether in print or online while print readership has leapt back strongly and is up 1.7 per cent to over 11.3 million during 2022.

“The excellent result shows over two-thirds of magazine categories increasing their print readership – including seven categories which increased readership by over 10 per cent on a year ago.

“The most impressive increase was for the Health & Family magazines which increased print readership by over a quarter, up 27.3 per cent to 1,338,000. Of the six continuing magazines in the category there were five that experienced an increase in readership and four that increased their readership by at least 10 per cent.

“Other significant results were recorded by Business, Financial & Airline Magazines, up 15.3 per cent to 1,072,000, Home & Garden Magazines, up 4.7 per cent to 3,921,000, Food & Entertainment, up 1.6 per cent to 7,233,000, General Interest Magazines, up 1.2 per cent to 4,131,000, Women’s Lifestyle Magazines, up 18.4 per cent to 361,000, Women’s Fashion Magazines, up 15.6 per cent to 875,000 and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, up 37.8 per cent to 368,000.

“The full cross-platform and print readership results for the year to December 2022 show the magazine industry has bounced strongly out of the pandemic-restricted years of 2020-21 with widespread growth across many key readership categories.

“The significant increases in print readership across the clear majority of magazine categories show that consumers are still firmly attached to the physical nature of a classic magazine and were keen to ‘get their hands on’ the latest magazine focusing on their area of interest.

“The most popular magazines continue to draw large audiences to their print editions and well over 1.6 million people now read Better Homes & Gardens, up 4.2 per cent on a year ago. In addition, over 1.2 million read Australian Women’s Weekly, almost 900,000 read National Geographic and over 750,000 read Woman’s Day and Taste.com.au Magazine.

“Today’s results for calendar 2022 show magazines reach the great majority of Australians – 15 million either in print or online via the web or an app  – and have a unique attachment to audiences that have continued to consumer their favourite titles throughout a highly disruptive period.

“The massive reach of magazines today provides a direct line to large and valuable audiences of hard to find consumers for advertisers looking for an edge on their rivals.”

To learn more about Roy Morgan’s Readership research, call (+61) (3) 9224 5309 or email askroymorgan@roymorgan.com.