Analysis of Roy Morgan’s latest readership results released for the 12 months to March 2019 shows that Bauer Magazines is the most widely read magazine publisher in four of the top 10 magazine categories – mass women’s magazines, motoring, TV and women’s lifestyle.

Bauer is a top three publisher in a total of eight of the top 10 categories which also includes food and entertainment, home and garden, health and family and women’s fashion categories.

Other publishers to perform well include Medium Rare which is the most widely read publisher for food and entertainment and business, financial and airline magazines.

Meanwhile, Pacific Magazines is the most widely read publisher for home and garden category and health and family.

Medium Rare is the most widely read publisher in the most widely read magazines category of food and entertainment with 4.84 million reading the publisher’s Coles Magazine just ahead of the 4.83 million that read NewsLifeMedia publications including Woolworth’s Fresh.

Bauer dominates the readership in the widely read mass women’s category with over 2.9 million Australians reading Bauer Magazines including Australia’s most widely read paid magazine The Australian Women’s Weekly ahead of second-placed Pacific Magazines with readership of 1,381,000 across magazines such as leading magazine title New Idea.

Pacific Magazines leads Bauer in the home and garden category with readership of 1,730,000 powered by Australia’s second most widely read paid magazine Better Homes & Gardens ahead of second placed Bauer on 939,000 led by House & Garden.

Bauer also leads readership in the motoring category driven by the readership of Wheels and Street Machine. It also leads in women’s lifestyle magazines thanks to NW and the TV category on the back of the readership of TV Week.

Mass women’s magazines appeal to older audiences than women’s lifestyle magazines

Analysing the audiences of mass women’s magazines and women’s lifestyle magazines shows that 79 per cent of the readers of mass women’s magazines and 84 per cent of women’s lifestyle’s magazines are women, however there are very different audiences for both categories when other demographics are considered.

The most likely consumers of mass women’s magazines are older Australians in the Baby Boomer generation while for women’s lifestyle magazines the appeal is strongest amongst the younger Millennials and Generation Zs.

There are similar trends at play for other leading magazine categories.

Motoring magazines which have an audience overwhelmingly of men (84 per cent) have their largest generational appeal to Australians in Generation X and also have strong appeal to the younger Millennials and Generation Z.

In contrast home and garden magazines with an audience that is just over two-thirds women compared to almost one-third men is a favourite of Baby Boomers and Generation X.