Australians have begun to adopt digital newspapers in record numbers as advertising campaigns from the leading national publications appear to be paying off. In 2014 digital has grown over 15% with eight million people on average consuming the news on a monthly basis.
The Sydney Morning Herald was Australia’s most-read newspaper across print and digital with 5.6 million readers, followed by The Daily Telegraph’s 4.4 million, The Herald Sun (4.3 million), The Age and The Courier-Mail (both with about 3.3 million).
Many of the top papers offer digital only subscriptions to their content, which has a price of about $3.00 a week on average. They also have various tiers where you can combine digital with the print weekend edition and also the most common level that gives you the paper every single day + full access to digital.
The average person tends to read the news on their computer, but traction is starting to mount for dedicated apps for Android and iOS. In a recent report, 221,000 Australians aged reported using the Sydney Morning Herald’s app, while 199,000 used The Age’s app. Apps produced by The Australian, the Herald Sun and the Daily/Sunday Telegraph were also popular with 95,000 people using it daily.
Australian publishers are also turning to dedicated newspaper ecosystems like PressReader, which has all of the daily editions and national papers. One of the big advantages is being able to get their content distributed properly to folks living or traveling abroad.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
