16 November 2009

Magazines continue to attract robust audience numbers, with women’s weekly magazines read by more than 7.6 million people on average and men’s interest and lifestyle titles read by 2.2 million, according to the latest Morgan readership survey.

Despite pressures from challenging economic conditions, the September 2009 survey results show total average issue readership (AIR) for consumer magazines dipped just 2.5 per cent compared to the June survey. Total readership across all consumer titles reached 38.8 million.

The strongest performing segments include Home & Lifestyle magazines, up 0.1 per cent to 3.5 million readers; Teen Girls up 1.9 per cent to 692,000 readers; Women’s Fashion up 1.0 per cent to 1.5 million; Business up 1.1 per cent to 1 million readers.

In the latest ABC quarterly circulation results, weekly magazines sales show clear signs of steadying across the category. Average net paid sales for the weekly segment dipped slightly, down just 0.6 per cent to total 2.43 million copies per week.

For the biggest selling category of women’s weeklies, total weekly sales reached 1.82 million copies, 0.2 per cent lower than the previous quarter**.

Sources: Roy Morgan Readership Survey October 2008 – September 2009, all people aged 14+ years.
*Based on analysis of Audit Bureau of Circulations, July-September 2009 results.