Despite the noise of News Corp’s Australian “growth”, it’s Fairfax which stretching its cross-platform lead, according to Roy Morgan audience research.

Annual figures to June figures show the Sydney Morning Herald now reaches 3,392,000 people in an average week (up 7.5 per cent), its 349,000 digital audience increase “vastly over-compensating” for the loss of 87,000 print readers.

By contrast, News’ Melbourne Herald Sun lost 187,000 print readers but only added 164,000 to its digital audience. However it maintained second place overall with an audience of 2,716,000 people, ahead of stablemate the Daily Telegraph, which grew 2.8 per cent to 2,520,000.

Morgan says the largest proportional audience gains were for News’ Hobart Mercury (up 16.6 per cent to 246,000) and Fairfax’s Australian Financial Review (up 11.7 per cent to 735,000). Digital growth is behind both publications’ overall audience gains: the Mercury’s website and app audience is up 53 per cent in the year, and the AFR’s is up 49 per cent.

The Adelaide Advertiser scored strong digital growth of 34 per cent over the period, driving the paper to a 7.1 per cent boost in overall audience to 1,088,000. The total audience for the (Brisbane) Courier-Mail also rose (up 5.7 per cent to 1,917,000), thanks to stable print readership and a solid 17 per cent growth in digital.

The Age was the only newspaper to score a modest increase in average issue print readership (up three per cent). Digital already accounts for around three quarters of the publication’s total cross-platform audience; a six per cent rise in web visitation and app usage contributed to a 3.4 per cent increase overall.

The Canberra Times now has a total audience of over half a million (509,000), 79 per cent of whom access the newspaper’s content via website or app. Total cross-platform audiences declined slightly for The Australian (down 1.4 per cent), the West Australian (down three per cent) and the (Perth) Sunday Times (down 3.2 per cent).

Weekday print

Two newspapers gained readers of their Monday to Friday editions in the year to June 2014: the Canberra Times (up 8.2 per cent) and Tasmania’s Mercury (up 3.7 per cent). The Courier-Mail and The Age held steady – “results which can easily be considered a victory in the context of the nation’s declining appetite for printed news,” say researchers. The Northern Territory News, Gold Coast Bulletin and Townsville Bulletin (all News titles) also each retained their weekday readers over the year.

Weekend print


Readership of the Saturday editions of the Gold Coast Bulletin and Northern Territory News have both grown by almost six per cent, with The Age and Financial Review maintaining their average number of Saturday readers. Among Sunday papers, only the Sunday Territorian held on to its readers.

Australian Newspaper Readership, 12 months to June 2014

Cross-Platform Audience is the number of Australians who have read or accessed individual newspaper content via print, web or app. 

Print is average issue readership; digital is website visitation and app usage in an average seven days.