Ahead of the holiday, Australian readership figures released this week had something for (almost) everyone.

The problem – as has been the case recently – was accessing and comparing the facts.

Industry group ThinkNewsBrands issued its usual cartoonesque update on the Total News Publishing figures released by Roy Morgan, with both major publishers issuing press releases on the day.

Nine announced The Age had “maintained its lead” against News Corp Australia’s (unmentioned) Herald-Sun, quoting cross-platform readership of 4.55 million, and making it “the nation’s second most read cross-platform masthead after the Sydney Morning Herald”. It said its ‘Total Publishing’ assets now reach a de-duplicated audience of 15.99 million across print and digital.

Print figures are rare these days, but Nine said The Age’s weekday print editions scored “average issue readership of 244,000, while Saturday’s print edition recorded 387,000 readers”.

ThinkNewsBrands tirelessly aggregates individual figures, but says in its ‘Total News Publishing Fact Pack’ that printed newspapers still have an audience of 11.8 million – of which 11.2 million read both print and digital – against digital’s 21.1 million.

Over at News, recently-appointed free news and lifestyle chief Pippa Leary noted an “engaged reach” in news of almost 37 page views per person, “more than 50 per cent higher than our nearest competitor”. Ipsos iris rankings showed her employer was the nation’s leading news and information publisher, reaching four out of five online Australians with an audience of 17.185 million.

In news, five of News’ brands feature in the top 25 sites, starting with news.com.au (11.132 million) ahead of the paywalled Herald Sun (3.389 million) and The Australian (3.337 million).

These figures are of course qualified by expressions such as “advertiser supported” and “subscription led”… and a few other things.

The News stats come from IAB-endorsed Ipsos iris; those for ThinkNewsBrands from Roy Morgan, a significant point since Ipsos quotes the ABC’s audience at 11.74 million while Roy Morgan has ABC News at 8.2 million.

Seven West’s The Nightly – potentially the cuckoo in a few east coast nests – doesn’t make the Roy Morgan monthly audience league table, though a June announcement put its monthly audience at 2.3 million readers, continuing an upward path since its February launch.

Against incrementally-increased (or even falling) figures, free site Daily Mail Australia is reported to have grown readership 18 per cent to 6.85 million.

Traditional ‘league tables’ detailing individual readership are scarce, and old-fashioned “circulation” non-existent. For the rest, we’re afraid, you’ll have to dig.