Fairfax ‘stretching cross platform lead’ says Morgan

Aug 12, 2014 at 09:47 am by Staff


Despite the noise of News Corp’s Australian “growth”, it’s Fairfax which stretching its cross-platform lead, according to Roy Morgan audience research.

Annual figures to June figures show the Sydney Morning Herald now reaches 3,392,000 people in an average week (up 7.5 per cent), its 349,000 digital audience increase “vastly over-compensating” for the loss of 87,000 print readers.

By contrast, News’ Melbourne Herald Sun lost 187,000 print readers but only added 164,000 to its digital audience. However it maintained second place overall with an audience of 2,716,000 people, ahead of stablemate the Daily Telegraph, which grew 2.8 per cent to 2,520,000.

Morgan says the largest proportional audience gains were for News’ Hobart Mercury (up 16.6 per cent to 246,000) and Fairfax’s Australian Financial Review (up 11.7 per cent to 735,000). Digital growth is behind both publications’ overall audience gains: the Mercury’s website and app audience is up 53 per cent in the year, and the AFR’s is up 49 per cent.

The Adelaide Advertiser scored strong digital growth of 34 per cent over the period, driving the paper to a 7.1 per cent boost in overall audience to 1,088,000. The total audience for the (Brisbane) Courier-Mail also rose (up 5.7 per cent to 1,917,000), thanks to stable print readership and a solid 17 per cent growth in digital.

The Age was the only newspaper to score a modest increase in average issue print readership (up three per cent). Digital already accounts for around three quarters of the publication’s total cross-platform audience; a six per cent rise in web visitation and app usage contributed to a 3.4 per cent increase overall.

The Canberra Times now has a total audience of over half a million (509,000), 79 per cent of whom access the newspaper’s content via website or app. Total cross-platform audiences declined slightly for The Australian (down 1.4 per cent), the West Australian (down three per cent) and the (Perth) Sunday Times (down 3.2 per cent).

Weekday print

Two newspapers gained readers of their Monday to Friday editions in the year to June 2014: the Canberra Times (up 8.2 per cent) and Tasmania’s Mercury (up 3.7 per cent). The Courier-Mail and The Age held steady – “results which can easily be considered a victory in the context of the nation’s declining appetite for printed news,” say researchers. The Northern Territory News, Gold Coast Bulletin and Townsville Bulletin (all News titles) also each retained their weekday readers over the year.

Weekend print


Readership of the Saturday editions of the Gold Coast Bulletin and Northern Territory News have both grown by almost six per cent, with The Age and Financial Review maintaining their average number of Saturday readers. Among Sunday papers, only the Sunday Territorian held on to its readers.

Australian Newspaper Readership, 12 months to June 2014

Newspapers

M-F

M-F

Sat

Sat

Sun

Sun

June 2013

June 2014

June 2013

June 2014

June 2013

June 2014

R'ship ('000s)

R'ship ('000s)

R'ship ('000s)

R'ship ('000s)

R'ship ('000s)

R'ship ('000s)

National

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Australian

367

354

765

714

-

-

Aust. Financial Review

236

220

146

146

-

-

NSW

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Telegraph

759

690

701

622

-

-

Sydney Morning Herald

562

534

819

758

-

-

Sunday Telegraph

-

-

-

-

1,220

1,095

The Sun-Herald

-

-

-

-

805

714

MX

153

137

-

-

-

-

Newcastle Herald

109

105

159

147

-

-

Illawarra Mercury

49

43

65

43

-

-

Canberra Times

73

79

113

102

74

69

VIC

 

 

 

 

 

 

Herald Sun

1,073

958

1,057

948

-

-

The Age

539

535

701

702

-

-

Sunday Herald Sun

-

-

-

-

1,086

961

The Sunday Age

-

-

-

-

577

566

MX

153

133

-

-

-

-

Geelong Advertiser

63

54

89

81

-

-

QLD

 

 

 

 

 

 

Courier-Mail

485

483

601

593

-

-

The Sunday Mail

-

-

-

-

915

869

MX

61

53

-

-

-

-

Cairns Post

64

56

99

83

-

-

Gold Coast Bulletin

88

87

102

108

-

-

Townsville Bulletin

57

57

77

72

-

-

SA

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adelaide Advertiser 

429

370

528

459

-

-

Sunday Mail

-

-

-

-

569

505

WA

 

 

 

 

 

 

West Australian

504

466

-

-

-

-

Weekend West

-

-

686

633

-

-

Sunday Times

-

-

-

-

560

525

Tasmania

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mercury

82

85

120

103

-

-

The Examiner

60

58

79

73

-

-

The Advocate

44

38

55

45

-

-

Sunday Tasmanian (Tas)

-

-

-

-

104

93

Sunday Examiner

-

-

-

-

70

65

Northern Territory

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northern Territory News

39

38

53

56

-

-

Sunday Territorian 

-

-

-

-

35

35

 

Cross-Platform Audience is the number of Australians who have read or accessed individual newspaper content via print, web or app. 

 

Print

Digital

(web or app)

Total Cross-Platform Audience

(print, web or app)

Publication

June 2013

(000s)

June 2014

(000s)

June 2013

(000s)

June 2014

(000s)

June 2013

(000s)

June 2014

(000s)

per cent change in

Total Cross-Platform Audience

Adelaide Advertiser

831

759

350

470

1016

1088

7.1 per cent

Canberra Times

240

160

--

400

--

509

--

Courier-Mail

1314

1310

737

860

1813

1917

5.7 per cent

Daily Telegraph

1782

1660

893

1074

2451

2520

2.8 per cent

Financial Review

459

430

241

359

658

735

11.7 per cent

Herald Sun

1894

1707

1176

1340

2744

2716

-1.0 per cent

Mercury

160

149

76

116

211

246

16.6 per cent

Newcastle Herald

234

210

--

97

--

293

--

Sunday Times

560

525

427

418

882

854

-3.2 per cent

Sydney Morning Herald

1410

1323

2248

2597

3155

3392

7.5 per cent

The Age

1040

1069

1726

1830

2380

2461

3.4 per cent

The Australian

1075

1028

899

957

1822

1796

-1.4 per cent

West Australian

976

908

501

541

1327

1287

-3.0 per cent

 

Print is average issue readership; digital is website visitation and app usage in an average seven days.

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