Figures from Roy Morgan Research for the year to September 2015, contained in its Australian Magazine Print Readership and Cross-Platform Audience study, showed that the combined reach of titles in Food & Entertainment was up 17.1%.
Topping the overall table were two free supermarket titles: Coles Magazine was up 31% to 3,672,000, while Woolworths' Fresh increased 25.4% to 3,272,000.
Two other paid-for Food & Entertainment titles in the top twenty also posted double-digit gains: Taste.com.au Magazine, jumped 36.7% to 607,000, and Recipes+ saw a more sedate advance of 13.2% to 421,000.
And smaller magazines in the category were also befitting from consumer interest, including Selector (+44.9% to 100,000), Gourmet Traveller Wine (+20.7% to 105,000) and Delicious (+5.5% to 364,000).
"The continued success of both Coles Magazine and Fresh highlights the increasing influence of retailers in the media space," Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan Research, told B&T Magazine.
But few other categories could boast similar growth to that of Food & Entertainment – only Sports (+15.4%) managed double digits, while General Interest (+6.0%), Health & Family (+5.0%), Business, Financial & Airline (+4.7%) and Music & Movies (+3.1%) all came in above the industry average of +2.7%.
Levine highlighted how magazines are but one aspect of a retail brand's potential cross-media audience, with websites, loyalty cards and store visits all factors that can be included to come up with an unduplicated 'total cross-platform' reach.
"When we look at Woolworths and all their assets," she explained, "the supermarket's total cross-platform reach among shoppers, magazine readers and loyalty subscribers is 14.6m Australians aged over 14, just ahead of Coles with 14.4m – despite the latter's 400,000 more magazine readers."
Data sourced from B&T Magazine; additional content by Warc staff