According to a survey held in fall 2019, the median household income among print magazine readers is lower than among adults who read magazines via the publication's website, social networking site, or blog. Ten percent more women than men were print magazine readers, and the median age of magazine readers was highest among those who read print.

In 2021, there were 222.2 million magazine readers aged 18 or older in the United States. This marked an increase of 300 thousand readers from the previous year. The number dropped substantially between 2019 and 2020, which the source partially attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting reduction in pass-along reading. The figure for 2019, on the other hand, was the highest recorded since 2012, and trends during that period indicated a slow annual increase in the number of magazine readers.

Magazine reading behavior

Magazine readership is changing. On the one hand, data from surveys held in 2019 and 2020 found that print magazines remained the preferred magazine format, but there was also a growing interest in online versions. The audience of magazine brands was comprised mostly of readers of print magazine and their digital counterparts in December 2020, but mobile web came a very close second with a year-to-date average audience of over 625 million. If this trend continues, magazine brands’ mobile web visitors will account for the majority of their audience in the next one to two years.

Magazine brands

In 2020, the fastest-growing magazine brand in the United States was experiential travel publication Afar. The magazine's average monthly audience grew by almost 60 percent compared to the previous year, partly thanks to a boost in the publication's mobile web visitors. The most recently available data on other travel magazine brands found that several publications in that category enjoyed a large mobile web audience, and Condé Nast Traveler had a video audience of over 6.5 million. The leading consumer magazine in the United States by circulation in the first half of 2021 was AARP The Magazine, with a circulation of close to 23 million.

According to a 2020 study held in the United States, the majority of adults prefer reading print magazines to digital, with 66 percent of respondents favoring printed publications. The study also revealed that over 45 percent of responding U.S. adults spent more than 15 minutes per day reading magazines in either format.

People magazine had the largest audience in the United States in the second quarter of 2024, with an average monthly reach of 94.5 million people. AARP The Magazine ranked second with a reach of just under 56.5 million, followed by Allrecipies with a total audience of just over 50 million.

Audiences in the United Kingdom predominantly accessed magazine content through their phones, according to data from June 2021 to June 2023. In total, 50 percent of people were reached by magazine brands via their phone, whereas only 37 percent read printed versions monthly during the period in consideration.

The graph shows data on the reach of popular magazines in the United States in June 2019. ESPN The Magazine had a reach of over 106 million people, and ranking second was People Magazine which had a reach of 98.51 million.

Reach of popular magazines – additional information

ESPN The Magazine is a biweekly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network. As of 2015, it had a circulation of almost 2.14 million copies, the vast majority of which were sold through its subscription services. ESPN’s television network also has a large audience, with an estimated monthly household reach of 48 percent during the 2014/15 sports season, a ten percent increase from the 2011/12 season.

The number of magazine readers in the United States has increased in the last four years, with an estimated total of 216.5 million adult readers in 2015. This has coincided with an increase in digital magazine readers, as there were 16 million U.S. digital magazine readers in 2015, in comparison to 3.3 million in 2011. ESPN The Magazine also has the largest mobile audience in the United States, with an estimated 47.8 million unique visitors in 2016. Forbes has the second highest mobile audience, with just over 40.5 million visitors in the same time period.

AARP The Magazine, the bi-monthly magazine published by the American Association of Retired People, AARP, had just over five million unique mobile visitors in 2016. However, it had the largest subscription circulation in the United States as it sold over 23.4 million copies through its subscription service in 2015. This large subscription audience meant that it was ranked eighth in the list of magazines with the largest audience in the United States in July 2016.

In 2024, magazine reading in the Netherlands was most popular among individuals older than 65 years. This based off the average readership reach of all magazines in the country in the first quarter of that year, as 83.3 percent of readers were 65 years or older. In contrast, only 37.9 percent of readers were between 13 and 19 years old. These figures describe the readership of printed magazines in the Netherlands and might differ when online figures are included.

The statistic above presents data on the daily time spent reading magazines per capita in the United States from 2010 to 2015 and offers a forecast for the period 2016 to 2018. An average U.S. consumer spent 18 minutes daily reading magazines in 2015.

Media use - additional information

It is estimated that the amount of time people spend reading magazines daily is decreasing. In 2010, the average U.S. consumer spent 24 minutes per day reading magazines, but this value is estimated to have dropped to 18 minutes per day in 2015. Despite a decrease in time spent reading magazines, daily usage of major media sources is on the rise. In 2011, an average American spent 668 minutes with major media daily. This included digital media and offline media. By 2015, this figure rose to 720 minutes and is expected to increase further to 728 minutes by 2018.

Daily media use is quite prominent in the United States, with an average of 251 minutes daily dedicated to television use and 132 minutes of online activity from a laptop or desktop computer as of 2015. The magazine industry must therefore adopt digital strategies in order to maintain its place in the market.

The distribution of the audience of magazine brands in the United States in 2020 showed that whilst print and digital editions of magazines attracted the largest number of readers with 41 percent of users, access through mobile web or video is on the rise. In the period running from December 2018 to December 2019, 37 percent of magazine access was via mobile web. That figure increased to 40 percent in the year running to December 2020.

According to a survey held between March and May 2021 in the United Kingdom, 46 percent of respondents aged 12 to 15 years claimed they either downloaded or accessed digital magazines at least once a week, making this group the most frequent consumers. By contrast, as little as 24 percent of those aged 16 to 24 years old read online magazines very frequently, with 76 percent saying that they did so every two to three weeks, about once a month, or less often.

The leading U.S. magazine brand website in the country in March 2021 was WebMD Magazine, which drew in 12.7 million unique online visitors that month. Seventh on the list was The Atlantic, an American magazine founded in 1857 in Boston, which provides online and print content. Printed magazine media in the U.S. Print media has been deeply affected by the digital revolution and many magazines and newspapers have had to move online (with some axing their print formats altogether) to retain readers. Making changes to adapt to modern media consumption has long been the norm for traditional publications, and some magazine brands have turned to video in an effort to draw in a larger audience. The share of magazine brands audience via video more than doubled between June 2018 and December of the same year, indicating that this platform could gain traction in years to come if this trend continues.

Magazine reader preferences Data from a study on magazine readership in the United States showed that the majority of U.S. magazine readers prefer print. Although that fact may come as a surprise to digital converts, many industry professionals and experts who continue to believe in and advocate for printed magazines will feel vindicated. Moreover, the magazine audience in the U.S. has actually increased consistently since 2012 and the number of print consumer magazines in circulation has also remained stable.

During a 2024 survey carried out in Mexico, some 22.8 percent of respondents who said they read magazines stated they read only digital editions of magazines. Reading printed versions of magazines was more popular among Mexican readers at that time.

The two highest ranking countries when it comes to the magazine readers (print) in selected countries worldwide, are India and Czechia. 33 percent of respondents from India as well as 29 percent from Czechia state that they read this type of media product. Statista Consumer Insights offer you all results of our exclusive Statista surveys, based on more than 2,000,000 interviews.

Dutch consumers in 2024 were least likely to read a magazine on a daily basis than ever during the previous ten years. This based on the results of a survey that measured every year whether or not consumers read a magazine each day (or close to each day). It suggests that magazine readership in the Netherlands fluctuated between 2013 and 2024, but generally decreased. In 2013, 22 percent of respondents indicated that they read magazines (almost) daily, whereas this percentage reached a new low, at 10 percent, in 2024.

This statistic contains data on the number of digital magazine readers in the United States from 2011 to 2016. According to the source there were 12.7 million digital magazine readers aged 18 years or older in the U.S. in 2013.

The graph presents information on Number of magazines read according to consumers in North America as of September 2018, by format. The survey results show that 25.3 percent of respondents said they didn't read any print magazines in the month preceding the study, and 54.7 percent said the same about digital magazines.

As of October 2024, TV emerged as the advertising medium to which the general population and fashion publication readers surveyed in the United States paid the most attention. However, the latter group gravitated less towards channels such as social media and online ads than the average, and more towards media like radio, magazines, newspapers, and out-of-home (OOH) ads.

In Italy, between April 2021 and April 2022, the number of Italians aged between 45 and 54 years made up the majority of the monthly magazine readership (over two million readers), followed by readers aged between 35 and 44 years with more than 1,72 million individuals

In Italy, between 2017 and January 2021, the number of Italian adults aged over 14 who had read a monthly newspaper in the month preceding the survey declined steadily in the selected period, falling from 13.64 million in the first four months of 2017 to 9.7 million as of January 2021. However, the figures were increasing again up to 10.3 million throughout the year of 2021, before dropping back to 9.7 million readers in April 2022.

Members' journals and freely available magazines were the highest-reached magazine category in Norway as of 2022/2023, at over 1.8 million readers. Newspaper magazines counted roughly 1.04 million readers and thus, they ranked second. Magazines targeted for female adults in third position reached nearly 660 thousand readers in the given period.