News readership: 96 per cent of Australians remain engaged with news

ThinkNewsBrands and Roy Morgan Total News figures show 20.6 million Australians over the age of 14 engage with news every month.

The latest release of Total News readership shows 96 per cent or 20.6 million Australians continue to consume news in a four-week period. The readership figures, produced by Roy Morgan for ThinkNewsBrands, refer to the 12 months to March 2023 and represent all news brands across print and digital as well as standalone news websites.

TOTAL NEWS READERSHIP

Demographically, Total News continues to engage audiences of all profiles at scale, including the high-income group, as well as the hard-to-reach under-40s.

READERSHIP DEMOGRAPHICS

While general, breaking news dominates news consumption with 95 per cent of Australians reading general news, there is a high level of cross-pollination to special interest categories with 70 per cent of general news readers reading three or more categories including property, sport and lifestyle.

CATEGORY READERSHIP

*Total News Publishing readership

When compared to the same period last year, readership shows a 0.2 per cent decline. This is due to post-Covid demographic shifts and behavioural implications. At the same time, an update was made to Australian population data in the current period. Readership is down across print and digital (-0.7 per cent and -5.8 per cent respectively), although print decline has slowed compared to previous reporting periods.

ThinkNewsBrands Executive General Manager Vanessa Lyons said: “Every week more Australians read the news than drink coffee or eat fresh vegetables. This readership data reaffirms that news provides a powerhouse of audience engagement and consumer readiness. The figures show that Total News not only delivers guaranteed scale, but also a primed audience ready to buy with 41 per cent of news consumers considered heavy users of the channel.”

Source: Roy Morgan Research, All People 14+. All audience data is based on the last 4 weeks averaged over the 12 months to March 2023.

Total News is defined as Australians aged 14+ reading news in print and/or news in digital. Digital news includes Australian publishers’ news websites/apps, Apple news and non-Australian-owned news. It also includes ABC news and Google news.

Based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data, this release includes three months of newly revised population adjustments. Some noticeable population shifts result in changes to estimates of readership compared to previous periods. There is no impact to surveyed incidence. For more information go here.

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Brooke Hemphill
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