NRS reveals smartphone and tablet magazine readership

For the very first time the National Readership Survey (NRS) is able to show the reach of magazine brands across not only print and PC, but also mobile and tablet.

The findings, which in the first phase include ten magazine brands, paint a healthy picture with mobile and tablet – including both websites and apps – increasing readership by an average of 27% across all titles.

The BBC’s Good Food – which includes the website bbcgoodfood.com – saw the addition of mobile and tablet data increase readership by 68%. Combined with print and digital, it reflects the true reach of the brand which now records a readership figure of 4.7 million each month.

Time Out also saw hefty gains when the mobile and tablet data was added, increasing readership by more than 32% to secure a little over 3.3 million readers each month.

There was a similar story for the NME brand, which saw an increase of almost 32% to secure just under 1.5 million readers.

Not all brands saw such large gains, however. BBC Top Gear magazine, which could still be deemed a largely print brand, saw the addition of mobile and tablet increase readership by just 12%. With only 366,000 on mobile/tablet and 415,000 on PC, the majority of readers – 1.64 million – prefer a hard copy.

The Heat brand witnessed similar results. Mobile and tablet only added a 9.6% increase in readership (368,000), whilst 215,000 catch-up with celeb gossip on PC and almost 2.5 million read the original printed version.

Since its launch in September 2012, NRS PADD has been providing estimates of the combined reach of print and PC websites based on a fusion of NRS and comScore data. The new mobile and tablet estimates have been added to this dataset, across an initial nineteen of the UK’s leading news and magazine brands, with additional titles being included in future releases subject to sample sizes and approval.

Click here to view the data for newsbrands.