The uptake of digitally delivered content shows no signs of slowing any time soon as Readly, the all you can read magazine subscription service, reveals their reading trends and top 10 category increases over the last year.
There is no denying that the COVID pandemic has had a profound impact on how and where we spend our time. Recent figures from digital magazine app Readly have shown that a large portion of us chose to turn to reading as a pastime and with a number of restrictions in place many chose to consume content digitally.
Beyond the world of celebrity and entertainment (which still showed an increase of over 94 per cent), Australians have broadened their tastes when it comes to the magazines they read. On average, Readlys’ subscribers read 13 titles per month.
Our interest was piqued primarily in topics in which our increased time at home could be put to good use – primarily with gardening (95 per cent increase), home and renovation (95 per cent), crosswords and sudoku (94 per cent), interior design and architecture (93 per cent), craft and DIY (92 per cent) and Health and Wellness (91 per cent), all coming in with growth north of 90 per cent.
Weddings have seen the largest increase of profile interest across all readers on the platform with 98 per cent growth when compared to January/February of 2020. The genre dedicated to kids also saw a growth of 95 per cent year on year, rounding out the nine categories which had recorded this level of increase.
Top 10 categories Jan/Feb 2020 vs Jan/Feb 2021
Wedding – 98 per cent
Gardening – 95 per cent
Home & Renovation – 95 per cent
Celebrity & Entertainment – 94 per cent
Crosswords & Sudoku – 94 per cent
Kids – 94 per cent
Interior Design & Architecture – 93 per cent
Craft & DIY – 92 per cent
Health & Wellness – 91 per cent
Animals & Equestrian – 89 per cent
From November 2020 to February 2021, as the summer and Christmas holidays approached and the majority of us had minimal travel plans, we turned to keeping the kids occupied.
Our younger readers took the reins as increases in comics (90 per cent), teen and young adult content (67 per cent), gaming (55 per cent) and kids (45 per cent) were recorded over the summer.
Notably, the category of history registered an increase of 48 per cent readership during the last quarter, growth which can be attributed to the recent launch of Readly Articles, which allows users to read content as stand-alone articles.
