The Weekend Australian Magazine kicks off its fresh revamp this weekend, with readers being treated to more lifestyle content and a bigger spread of columnists.

But never fear, the mag won’t be straying from its usual in-depth features and profiles, instead adding a new ‘Life’ section in which there will be expanded coverage of food, wine, gardening, motoring, travel and fashion.

Additionally, the line-up of columnists and contributors (including Nikki Gemmell, Phillip Adams, Glynis Triall-Nash, James Halliday and David Herbert) will get an added hit with the addition of Bernard Salt, Jeremy Clarkson, John Lethlean and Helen Young.

This is just one part of the revamp which includes a refreshed overall design, a new masthead and better quality cover stock.

The Australian CEO Nicholas Gray said, “The changes we are making to improve The Weekend Australian Magazine demonstrate our ongoing commitment to investment in great journalism and an increasing focus on cross-platform publishing innovation.”

Recent customer research conducted for The Australian showed the magazine to be one of the biggest drivers of purchase of the weekend paper and also highlighted the importance of lifestyle as a part of the magazine’s content-mix. Currently over 490,000* people read The Weekend Australian every week – this figure is up 6.5 per cent compared to three months ago.

The Australian editor-in-chief Paul Whittaker said the investment in the magazine sends a strong message to the market that “there is ­plenty of life left in print”.

“The Weekend Australian Magazine is one of the biggest drivers of paper sales on the weekend so it made sense to invest in it. The magazine still has all the great news features people expect, but with 20 extra pages of lifestyle content it is now a more complete weekend read.

The new print edition of The Weekend Australian Magazine will increase in size from a minimum 40 pages to 60, with this weekend’s launch edition boasting 68 pages. At the same time a new digital magazine template with full screen images and video will ensure a rich reading experience across all devices.

Response to the product improvements from advertisers has been strong; in the first edition Jaguar are making use of the thicker cover stock with a premium gate-fold execution.

The Weekend Australian Magazine editor Christine Middap said, “The new-look magazine will still have a strong emphasis on our core ­offering of features and story­telling, but with additional profiles, harder stories, a focus on place and country, and the story behind the headlines.”

Source: emma data, 12 months to March 2016.