The pervasive problem of what to cook for supper is helping reignite Australians’ love affair with print magazines.

The ‘food & entertainment’ category, clear leader in new Roy Morgan stats, rose 4.3 per cent to 7.49 million print readers in the year to last September. Helping drive that are the country’s two most widely read free magazines, Woolworths’ Fresh Ideas (up 6.1 per cent to 5,058,000), and the rival Coles magazine, which rose 3.1 per cent to 4,970,000.

The upward trend is however, more general in a country which once boasted the highest per-capita magazine readership in the world. The new Roy Morgan Single Source survey indicates that 11.6 million Australians aged 14+ (53.0 per cent) read print magazines, up 3.5 per cent on a year ago.

This market broadens to 15.1 million Australians aged 14+ (69.2 per cent) who read magazines in print or online either via the web or an app, although this is virtually unchanged from a year ago.

Print readership increased for an exceptional 14 magazine categories compared to a year ago.

After food & entertainment, the second most widely read category was home & garden, where magazines increased their readership by 12.1 per cent to 4,251,000 and ‘mass women’s’ magazines were up 4.5 per cent to 2,830,000.

Business, financial & airline magazines were also a winner, gaining 29.2 per cent to 1,313,000, with health & family up 3.6 per cent to 1,333,000, women’s fashion up 19.9 per cent to 996,000, TV magazines up 9.8 per cent to 617,000, sports magazines up 13 per cent to 522,000, women’s lifestyle magazines up 3.5 per cent to 353,000, computing, gaming & info tech up a large 36.2 per cent to 320,000, and fishing magazines up 13.7 per cent to 257,000.

Eight of the top ten magazines increased their print readership over the past year with Better Homes & Gardens and the Australian Women’s Weekly again the most widely read paid magazines

BHG’s print readership rose 10.9 per cent to 1,805,000, ahead of the Australian Women’s Weekly on 1,336,000, up 8.3 per cent. Among other paid magazines in the top ten, Woman’s Day increased print readership by 4.3 per cent to 783,000, and House & Garden rose 20.4 per cent to 696,000.

Of the other free magazines, Bunnings magazine put on 16.5 per cent, bringing it to 1.83 million, ahead of the NRMA’s Open Road (NSW) with 1.24 million.

Other magazines with double-digit increases in their print readership included Qantas Magazine (up 38.7 per cent as Australians returned to travelling), Australian Geographic (up 25.5 per cent), Vogue Australia (up 29.3 per cent), AFL Record (up 47.4 per cent), Home Beautiful (up 28.2 per cent), and Marie Claire (up 29.7 per cent to 307,000 and the fastest growing fashion title in Australia).