SYDNEY: News Magazines' GQ has led the charge in the magazine readership war increasing its audience by 110.4% year-on-year in the latest Roy Morgan readership survey.
It's the third consecutive quarter the glossy men's title has had the biggest percentage increase, adding an extra 53,000 readers compared to the same time last year.
It was the star perfomer in a mixed bag of results in the men's category. Alpha continued its slide, losing 34.3% of readers year-on-year; FHM was down 17.3%; Ralph dropped 4.6% of readers and Zoo Weekly lost 11.4%.
However Pacific Magazines' Men's Health continued the GQ led move away from lad mags towards health and grooming, adding 12.9% more readers compared to the same time last year while Men's Style Australia published by ACP grew a modest 3.3%
In the tightly contested food category ACP's recently acquired Recipes+ which is yet to publish under ACP management, continued to top the readership increase for the segment, and now boasts 426,000 readers, up 38.3%.
ACP's Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine posted a 34.1% increase. The rest of the category remained relatively flat, with minor losses and gains.
News Mags' Australian Good Taste had the biggest drop down 11.7% year-on-year, while its Vogue Entertaining+Travel, which has now gone bi-annual, posted a 6.5% increase in its final survey.
The mass women's magazines continue to be led by ACP's Women's Weekly with the stalwart title topping the overall readership survey once again, with 2,185,000 readers which is a drop of 1.4%.
Despite a 5.2% drop Woman's Day remains a strong contender in the weeklies, with 2,045,000 readers, while its biggest competitor, New Idea dropped 13.6% to 1,563,000 readers.
Famous continues to pay dividends for Pacific Magazines, up 23.4%; ACP's Grazia dropped 12.1%, Take 5 and That's Life remained steady with minor losses and gains respectively; ACP's NW dropped 16.4% from 402,000 to 336,000 readers; Cleo lost 12.0% and Cosmopolitan was down 4.0%.
The women's fashion segment had little movement with few notable losses or gains. News' Vogue Australia lost 8.5%, while the rest of the category, including Pacific Magazines' InStyle and Marie Claire; and ACP's Harpers Bazaar and Madison all remained steady.
Click here for the full list of circulation and readership results for magazines, newspapers and newspaper inserted magazines.
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