1.4 million Aussies play puzzles each month!

I’m sure at some stage we’ve all been told that playing some kind of mind-bending puzzle will put off a stay in a nursing home. According to research conducted by Roy Morgan there are 1.4 million of us are trying to stave off the inevitable, or there’s a lot of bored people out there.

Leading puzzle magazines such as Take 5 Mega Puzzler, Take 5 Pocket Puzzler, Australian Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book, Woman’s Day Superpuzzler, New Idea Jumbo Puzzler, Mr. Wisdom’s Whopper and Lovatts Puzzle Magazines have a combined readership of 348,000.

Funilly enough the survey discovered the majority of readers only buy the magazine for the enclosed puzzle. 

Readership of puzzle magazines (blue bar) and % who are read the namesake title (dark blue) and % who do not read the namesake titles (red bar)

Roy Morgan’s readership figures are based on personal interviews with over 50,000 Australians over the last 12 months including around 4,000 interviews each month. The full Roy Morgan March 2019 magazine readership figures are available to view here.

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), Dec. 2018-Mar 2019, n= 16,559.

Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, says: “New Roy Morgan research shows that puzzle magazines are read by over 1.4 million Australians in an average month. Given the close association puzzle magazines have with many leading women’s magazines it is no surprise that women comprise over 70% of the readership of puzzle magazines.

“Additional analysis of the readership of puzzle magazines shows that over 750,000 Australians in Capital Cities read puzzle magazines compared to just fewer than 670,000 in Country Areas. Given around two-thirds of Australians live in Capital Cities it’s clear puzzle magazines are particularly popular in Australia’s regional areas.

“The leading puzzle magazine by readership is Lovatts Puzzle Magazine, read by nearly 350,000 Australians in an average month, while other magazines including Take 5 Mega Puzzler, Take 5 Pocket Puzzler, Australian Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book, New Idea Jumbo Puzzler and Woman’s Day Superpuzzler are also read by hundreds of thousands.

“Australia’s most widely read paid magazine the Australian Women’s Weekly has a readership of 1,536,000 in the year to March 2019 and when one includes those who read the Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book the net readership grows to over 1.6 million demonstrating that the puzzle magazine is reaching a significantly different audience.

“The net readership of the four Take 5 magazines including Take 5 Weekly, Take 5 Bumper Monthly, Take 5 Mega Puzzler and Take 5 Pocket Puzzler is 1,176,000 which is a far wider audience than that of the leading individual title Take 5 Bumper Monthly read by 652,000.

“The appeal of the puzzle magazines is evident when one considers that over 70% of the readers of leading puzzle magazines Australian Women’s Weekly Puzzle Book, Take 5 Pocket Puzzler, Mr. Wisdom’s Whopper and Woman’s Day Superpuzzler do not also read the name brand magazine they are associated with. This creates significant possibilities for these magazines to appeal to a new audience.

I’m off to do a crossword.