Roy Morgan & Nielsen Data: Current Events And Global News Consumption Soars, While Nine’s Mastheads Pull Rank

Nielsen Digital Content Ratings data released today reported that, with four months still remaining for 2020, Australians have spent almost the same amount of time consuming Current Events & Global News (CEGN) content online as they did for the entire year of 2019.

ABC News Websites retained the top position, with a unique audience of 13 million for the month of August 2020. news.com.au ranked second with a unique audience of 11.2 million, followed by Daily Mail Australia with 10.9 million and nine.com.au with a unique audience of 10.3 million. 7NEWS was ranked fifth with 9.9 million.

The Age (up 8.42 per cent) and Daily Mail Australia (up 1.75 per cent) were the only two sites in the top ten to see an uplift in unique audience when compared to the previous month.

Meanwhile, Roy Morgan has also released its latest enhanced cross-platform audience results for newspapers & magazines.

In the 6 months to June this year an estimated 18.5 million (88 per cent) Australians aged 14 and over read or accessed newspapers or newspaper content in some way – print editions, online via website, app or news platforms including (metropolitan, local and regional titles) in an average four weeks.

This includes an estimated 16.1 million (77 per cent) reading or accessing metropolitan titles.

Sydney Morning Herald is Australia’s top masthead 

Standout performers for Newspapers are the Nine Entertainment owned Sydney Morning Herald with a cross-platform audience of almost 8.3 million and its Melbourne stablemate The Age with a cross-platform audience of over 5.6 million Australians in an average 4 week period in the six months to June.

News Corp’s Daily Telegraph is in third place with a cross-platform audience of 4.85 million in front national broadsheet The Australian and its Melbourne counterpart the Herald Sun which both have a cross-platform audiences of around 4.3 million Australians.

A look at the discrete quarterly figures for Australia’s leading mastheads shows strong growth for leading titles in the June quarter compared to the March quarter as people sought out trusted news sources to learn more about COVID-19 and the restrictions being introduced by Australian government.

The mastheads that experienced the strongest growth in the June quarter included The Australian, Australian Financial Review, Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the West Australian/Sunday Times in Perth which all grew their enhanced 4 week cross-platform audiences by more than 400,000.

Bauer Media’s ‘Now to Love’ online magazine destination is read by over 2.6 million Australians

The results for the six months to June 2020 for Magazine Publishers are equally impressive with the enhanced 4 week cross-platform audience data showing the Bauer Media owned ‘Now to Love’ website attracts an audience of 2.6 million Australians in an average 4 week period. Bauer Media’s ‘Now to Love’ website allows magazine publishers to reach their audience in new ways with innovative online offerings.

Many of Bauer Media’s magazine brands (including Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day, TV Week and Take 5) have consolidated their online presence in the ‘Now to Love’ website which is adding incremental reach to already strong print based publications including Woman’s Day, estimated to reach more than 1.4 million readers in an average 4 week period, and stablemate Australian Women’s Weekly with an estimated 4 week print reach approaching 1.1 million readers.

There are several other magazines with large cross-platform audiences including News Corp’s Taste.com.au Magazine with a total audience of over 3.2 million, Bauer Media’s New Idea with over 2.4 million and Better Home & Gardens with over 1.9 million readers in an average 4 weeks in the six months to June 2020.

Better Homes & Gardens leads growth in print magazine readership 

Better Homes & Gardens is Australia’s most widely read paid magazine with an average issue print readership up 3.2 per cent to 1,622,000 in the year to June 2020 followed by the Australian Women’s Weekly with an average issue print readership of 1,243,000.

In addition National Geographic has retained an impressive average issue print readership of 982,000 followed by Woman’s Day on 773,000 and Bauer Media’s New Idea on 689,000 while That’s Life Mega Monthly was up 8.4 per cent to 414,000.

The recently launched New Idea Royals is again Australia’s tenth most widely read paid magazine with a sizeable average issue print readership of 494,000.

Coles Magazine & Fresh most widely read free magazines 

Australia’s two most widely read free magazines are again Coles Magazine with an average issue print readership in the year to June 2020 of 4,535,000 and Fresh with a readership of 3,994,000.

Bunnings Magazine is the third most widely read free magazine. It has an average issue print readership in the year to June 2020 of 1,161,000 making the hardware retailer’s magazine, launched early in 2019, one of only five with an average issue print readership of more than 1 million Australians.

The five most read categories of magazines by average issue print readership

• Food & Entertainment (6,437,000 Australians, 30.7% of the population);
• General Interest (3,887,000 Australians, 18.5% of the population);
• Home & Garden (3,292,000 Australians, 15.7% of the population);
• Mass Women’s (2,955,000 Australians, 14.1% of the population);
• Business, Financial & Airline (1,160,000 Australians, 5.5% of the population).