Home » News Readership: 96% Of Aussies Remain Engaged With News; SMH Remains Most-Read Masthead

22 May, 2023

News Readership: 96% Of Aussies Remain Engaged With News; SMH Remains Most-Read Masthead

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 96 per cent or 20.6 million Australians continue to consume news in a four-week period.

It also showed that Nine’s the Sydney Morning Herald remains the country’s most-read masthead. The SMH had a four-week average readership of 7.7 million. That was followed by The Age (5.2 million), Herald Sun (4.2 million), The Australian (4.2 million), Daily Telegraph (four million), The West Australian & PerthNow (3.8 million), The AFR (3.5 million), Courier-Mail (2.9 million), Adelaide Advertiser (1.7 million) and The Saturday Paper (900,000).

The Sydney Morning Herald’s editor, Bevan Shields, said: “I am proud of our team for achieving such a strong result, particularly given the challenging environment all publishers are finding themselves in right now,” said The Sydney Morning Herald’s editor, Bevan Shields.

“The Herald continues to set the benchmark for quality journalism in Australia and I want to thank our subscribers and readers for their continued support for what we do.”

The readership figures, produced by Roy Morgan for ThinkNewsBrands, refer to the 12 months to March 2023 and represent news brands across print and digital as well as standalone news websites.

Demographically, Total News continues to engage audiences of all profiles at scale, including the high-income group, as well as the hard-to-reach under-40s.

While general, breaking news dominates news consumption with 95 per cent of Australians reading general news, there is a high level of cross-pollination to special interest categories with 70 per cent of general news readers reading three or more categories including property, sport and lifestyle.

When compared to the same period last year, readership shows a 0.2 per cent decline. This is due to post-Covid demographic shifts and behavioural implications. At the same time, an update was made to Australian population data in the current period. Readership is down across print and digital (-0.7 per cent and -5.8 per cent respectively), although print decline has slowed compared to previous reporting periods.

ThinkNewsBrands executive general manager Vanessa Lyons said: “Every week more Australians read the news than drink coffee or eat fresh vegetables. This readership data reaffirms that news provides a powerhouse of audience engagement and consumer readiness. The figures show that Total News not only delivers guaranteed scale, but also a primed audience ready to buy with 41 per cent of news consumers considered heavy users of the channel.”

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