Readership soars 11pc as The Australian delivers rapid growth

The Australian’s print and digital platforms have delivered fast-paced growth to top 3.6 million monthly readers.

The Australian’s print and digital platforms have delivered fast-paced growth over the past year to top 3.6 million monthly readers.

The latest Emma newspaper audience figures for the year to October show an 11.1 per cent jump in The Australian’s print and digital readers over the past year.

The Australian also delivered breakneck growth on the month with total readers up 30 per cent.

The surge for The Australian, which has a full paywall, came in the wake of a big month for news, including the twists in the lead-up to the Wentworth by-election and ongoing fallout from the board and management implosion at the ABC. Globally US President Donald Trump secured his nomination to the Supreme Court — Brett Kavanaugh.

The Australian’s daily print readership increased 1.6 per cent on the month and now exceeds 454,000, easily outpacing Nine Entertainment’s Financial Review which has 278,000 weekday print readers. The Weekend Australian’s print readership continues to dominate with 551,000 — nearly five times the weekend readership of AFR.

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The October Emma figures for the first time incorporate calibrated Nielsen Digital Content Ratings (DCR), providing a more detailed picture to advertisers of the digital audience for news websites. According to the Emma figures, news media in all platforms are read by 17.5 million Australians, 94 per cent of the population.

Melbourne’s Herald Sun extended its reach over the year to average 4.43 million digital and print monthly readers, while Sydney’s Daily Telegraph has 4.5 million monthly digital and print readers. Both mastheads have a partial paywall. The Herald Sun retains the nation’s biggest print audience with 1.01 million readers.

Elsewhere, Brisbane’s Courier-Mail print and digital readership rose 16.4 per cent to 3.04 million and News Corp’s news.com.au website retained its position as the top news brand in Australia.

Fairfax Media’s new owner Nine has inherited largely free news websites The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, which have 7.42 million and 3.64 million monthly readers respectively, according to the Emma figures. But both mastheads suffered sharp falls in print readership on the year with the SMH sliding 14.6 per cent to 557,000 readers while The Age’s print readership fell 18.7 per cent to 457,000.

News Corp remains the largest print and digital publisher in Australia with a monthly audience of 16.9 million (including property website REA), outpacing Fairfax and Nine Digital’s 15.6 million.