Australian magazine subscription ownership has decreased by 3 per cent over the last year, driven by a reduction in readership from Millennials, a new report has found.
Deloitte’s eighth annual Media Consumer Survey 2019: Australian media and digital entertainment preferences surveyed more than 2,000 Australian media consumers across a range of age groups:
- Trailing Millennials: aged 14-29 years
- Leading Millennials: aged 30-35 years
- Xers: aged 36-52 years
- Boomers: aged 53-71 years
- Matures: aged over 72 years.
Australian millennials turning away from magazine subscriptions
The survey results show a drop in the number of respondents owning magazine subscriptions, now at 8 per cent compared to 11 per cent last year.
The report says that this appears to be driven by a continued reduction in Millennial readership from both Trailing Millennials (7 per cent this year, down from 13 per cent last year) and Leading Millennials (6 per cent down from 18 per cent).
Matures and Boomers are the main paying subscribers for newspapers and magazines at 39 per cent and 33 per cent respectively of all subscribers, with 10 per cent of Xers purchasing subscriptions.
Magazine subscriber loyalty remains high
However, Deloitte found that despite a decrease in subscription ownership, magazine loyalty remained high, with 55 per cent of magazine subscribers having held their subscriptions for more than three years.
“This has been consistent since 2015… indicating publishers continue to rely on a consistently loyal base of subscribers,” the report states.
A recent GlobalWebIndex report also showed no decrease in the amount of time Australians spent consuming magazines and newspapers at 31 minutes per day – the same amount of time recorded in 2014.
What will Australian users pay for?
Deloitte survey respondents listed unique content (13 per cent), brand trust (12 per cent) and in-depth analysis (12 per cent) as the top three drivers for willingness to pay for online content.
However 64 per cent said nothing would entice them to pay for news, which is at odds with overseas experience where news subscriptions are reported to have doubled to 20 million over the last 18 months.
To read the report in full, visit Deloitte’s website.
