Australia’s newsmedia appear to have regained the 0.2 per cent fall in readership announced earlier this year, with 20.8 million over-14s reading – or they put it, “engaging with” – what ThinkNewsBrands likes to call ‘total news’.

In May, the decline in readership, year-on-year, was attributed to “post-COVID demographic shifts and behavioural implications”.

The devil’s in the detail, with ‘total news’ defined as Australians aged 14+ reading news in print and/or digital. Digital news includes Australian publishers’ news websites/apps, Apple News and non-Australian-owned news. It also includes ABC News and Google News.

The new figures, produced by Roy Morgan – and illustrated with bold new graphics – present audience data based on the last four weeks averaged over the 12 months to September 2023.

“The latest figures show Total News continuing to retain its broad reach across the country, with 20.8 million Australians aged 14+ years consuming news in any given month. Importantly, the figures also illustrate ongoing affinity and trust in Total News as readers across all demographics actively lean into the channel, leading to 68 million interactions per week,” the statement says.

And then – given the target audience is media buyers – it moves to emphasise the “enviably sticky, affluent audience”: Figures show Australian news readers are consistently engaged across multiple sources of news content to satisfy diverse interests, “with 3 in 5 news audiences” (that’s 60 per cent for the rest of us) reading three or more categories in addition to general, breaking news content. The most popular categories after general news (94 per cent) are property (67 per cent), sport (60 per cent), lifestyle & health (57 per cent), entertainment & culture (51 per cent), and business & finance (47 per cent).

TNB executive general manager Vanessa Lyons says Aussies “eagerly embrace news content across all forms and topics, to stay informed, up to date and entertained throughout the day”.

More than 60 per cent of readers are now paying to access written news content, and these are 20 per cent more likely than the general population to be homeowners and big spenders. “And on average, hold two times the level of wealth compared to the average Australian ($158,000 in savings/investments vs. $70,000),” she says.