Consumer Magazines See 83% Growth in Digital Readership

The GfK MRI’s new Survey of the American Consumer found that overall readership of consumer magazines has grown in the past year. What’s most

The GfK MRI’s new Survey of the American Consumer found that overall readership of consumer magazines has grown in the past year. What’s most interesting, however, is the 83% jump in digital readership.Overall, consumer magazines saw just a 3% growth in readership from single-copy and subscription sales, both in print and digital. And digital edition readership (i.e., tablet and replicas, not websites) still remains a fraction of overall readership at 1.4%.Yet, this 1.4% of the pie grew exponentially between the spring of 2012 and the spring of 2013. According to the GfK MRI survey, digital audiences grew from 9.2 million in 2012 to 16.9 million, an 83% increase.Of course, with such a wide gap between print and digital subscribers, legacy publications should not be swift to abandon print (as Newsweek did, to disastrous effect) — especially since 75% of tablet owners reported preferring print. Legacy publications should, however, be looking to grow their digital audiences steadily over the next few years by gently transitioning print subscribers with bundled subscriptions.

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