NRS PADD – Print remains dominant medium for magazines

Mobiles and tablets continue to play an increasingly important part in the readership of magazines, the latest findings from NRS PADD (July 2014 – June 2015) reveal; however, while newsbrands see a significant shift towards hand-held devices, print remains the dominant medium for many magazine brands.

BBC Good Food leads the way with a combined audience of almost 8.3 million, with mobile accounting for 5.6 million – adding a huge 142.3% to its print and PC audience.

Cosmopolitan and Time Out were the only other mobile-heavy magazine brands of the 26 measured, with mobile and tablet readership adding 112.6% and 73.4%, respectively, to print and PC – significantly above the 64% average.

In contrast, and demonstrating the longevity of print in an increasingly connected world, Hello!, Heat, National Geographic, Men’s Health and Empire all have a strong print following, with mobile and tablet readership adding less than 30% to each of their audiences.

While The Radio Times is also dominated by print, accounting for 2.6 million of its total audience of 4.8 million, mobile still makes up a decent amount of its readership, adding 47%.

Similarly, mobile adds 49% to Top Gear’s total print-heavy audience of 2.8 million, while PC readership lags at 388,000.

What Car? was the only magazine brand to record a fairly even split across print, PC and mobile.

While PCs aren’t the dominant platform for any magazine brand, they continue to play an important part for BBC Good Food, Time Out, NME and What Car? .

Overall, across a month on Print, PC, mobile and tablet, 94% (48.6 million) of UK adults aged 15+ are reached by newsbrand or magazine media content.

Click here to see the results for the newspaper market.