The Australian outperforms Nine-owned rivals

The Australian has emerged with one of the nation’s biggest print audiences, the latest breakdown shows.

The Australian has emerged with one of the nation’s biggest print audiences, the latest breakdown of newspaper readership has shown.

A new measure by industry benchmark Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (Emma) shows The Australian had 1.928 million print readers during November. This is more than double the print audience of The Australian Financial Review, which recorded 990,000 readers during the same month, Emma’s figures show.

Combined with a digital audience of 1.977 million, The Australian’s monthly print and digital platforms delivered an audience of 3.612 million, ahead of the AFR’s total of 2.503 million.

In terms of print audience, The Australian is also ahead of the Nine Entertainment-owned The Sydney Morning Herald with 1.776 million monthly readers and The Age’s 1.249 million readers.

Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph boasts the nation’s biggest print audience with 2.418 million monthly readers, while Melbourne’s Herald Sun comes in a close second with 2.415 million print readers.

While digital growth is crucial for newspapers, print readership remains important given the premium that print advertising commands.

In a big month for news with the Victorian election, the Herald Sun averaged 4.515 million digital and print monthly readers, while The Daily Telegraph had 4.195 million. Both have a partial paywall.

Elsewhere, Brisbane’s Courier-Mail posted print and digital readership of 2.927 million and Seven West Media’s West Australian delivered combined audience of 2.544 million for November.

The largely free news websites at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have a combined digital and print audience of 7.639 million and 4.174 million monthly readers respectively.