2LT National News

MELBOURNE, Australia – In a surprising result, a national survey has revealed that more than three-quarters of Australians are reading or accessing newspapers.

Roy Morgan Research, in announcing on Friday their latest readership results for Australian newspapers for the 12 months to March 2019, said more than 15.7 million, or 76.3%, of Australians aged 14 and over were now reading or accessing newspapers, either by print or online.

Although most leading newspapers had a decline in total cross-platform readership there were several bright spots. The Herald Sun grew its digital audience to over two million while the Australian Financial Review increased its total cross-platform audience by 4.6 per cent to 1,469,000.

Western Australia’s only metropolitan newspaper the West Australian grew its digital and cross-platform audience by 2.2 per cent to 1,095,000, while The Saturday  Paper had strong growth across print and digital readership and grew its total cross-platform audience by 16.7 per cent to 259,000.

The Roy Morgan Single Source survey sampled 51,362 Australians aged 14+ in the 12 months to March 2019.

Australia’s most widely read masthead continues to be The Sydney Morning Herald – with a cross-platform audience of 4,043,000, down 5.3 per cent from a year ago. Melbourne daily the Herald Sun with a cross-platform audience of 2,905,000 is now in front of its Sydney stablemate the Daily Telegraph which now has a cross-platform audience of 2,871,000 – despite both declining over the last year.

Melbourne's The Age with a cross-platform audience of 2,792,000 (down 10 per cent) and national broadsheet The Australian with a cross-platform audience of 2,465,000 (down 4.6 per cent) both declined compared to a year ago.

Readership of the Brisbane daily newspaper The Courier-Mail dropped sharply from 2,033,000 in the previous period, to 1,750,000 in the 12 months to March 2019, a fall of 13.90 per cent.

Rupert Murdoch's first newspaper Adelaide's The Advertiser performed well. Monday to Friday the daily picked up 257,000, pretty much in line with the previous year's 258,000.

The Canberra Times did poorly, it's Monday to Friday circulation across platforms dropped from 47,000 to 41,000 (down 12.76 per cent).

Hobart's The Mercury actually increased its Monday to Friday readership from 49,000 to 52,000.

The Northern Territory News, based in Darwin, did did better, rising from 23,000 across all platforms Monday to Friday to 26,000.