9 in 10 Americans engage with magazine media: News/Media Alliance report

Heavy magazine readers are a force when it comes to their influence on social media and with family, friends, and neighbors on their shopping and purchasing decisions, making them an important audience for advertisers, according to a new report released by the News/Media Alliance.

The new report, 2024 Magazine Supplement to the Market Report: Magazine Media: Influential, Engaged & Action-Oriented, provides facts and figures on the magazine media audience, magazine readership, and heavy* magazine readers’ preferences, influence and purchasing behavior. The report includes the latest data from MRI-Simmons 2024 spring 2024 data set; MRI Simmons’ Starch Advertising Study (January – December 2023); and MRI Simmons’ Multi-Media Engagement Study, May 2023.

Magazine media continue to enjoy strong readership, with a print and digital audience of 223 million Americans in 2024. Nearly 9 in 10 (87%) American adults engaged with magazine media in recent months and span all ages and many races and ethnicities. These trends have been stable over the last four years, indicating a strong and loyal magazine audience.

According to this year’s report, heavy magazine readers are more likely than other media users to say they use social media to rate or review a product or service on social media, and therefore may build a following and be regarded as influencers. Heavy magazine readers are also more influential than other media users in their recommendations to friends and family, neighbors or colleagues, and with others online and in stores, especially around healthcare and automotive products and services.

The Magazine Supplement also finds continued strong engagement with, and actions taken by, heavy magazine readers on advertisements they see in magazines. Magazine readers are consistently very positive toward advertisements they see in magazine media. Nearly 6 in 10 (57%) adults say ads in magazines fit well with the content. Nearly 8 in 10 (78%) magazine readers who see an ad in their magazine take an action as a result. One in 4 readers looked for more information about the product/service (25%) or visited the advertiser’s website (23%).

Alliance President and CEO Danielle Coffey said, “This latest data on the magazine audience demonstrates magazine readers’ continued appeal as a key target group for advertisers, as well as the wide-ranging benefits of magazines to their readers, reinforcing the value and effectiveness of magazine media for marketers in reaching key purchasing groups.”

Today’s magazine publishers are not only providers of original journalism; they provide a variety of customer-focused marketing solutions, from print and digital advertising to ecommerce sites, events, research and marketing services.

Coffey continued, “Nowhere else can readers find the quality journalism and content that our members offer. With our members, marketers can feel confident that their ads will always appear alongside trusted and credible content.”

*Heavy magazine readers are the top quintile of magazine users.

Highlights from the 2024 Magazine Supplement:

1. Magazine media readership is strong, with nearly 9 in 10 American adults of all ages reporting reading magazine media in the last six months.

• The print and digital magazine audience remains strong at 223.0 million adults in spring 2024.
• Nearly 9 in 10 American adults of all ages (87%) reporting reading magazine media in the last six months.

2. Magazines reach an engaged audience of young and diverse consumers.

• Magazine readership continues to enjoy broad diversity, with 9 in 10 Asian Americans (91%) and members of the LGBT community (90%), and nearly 9 in 10 Black/African Americans (88%), Hispanic Americans (86%), and American Indian or Alaska Native (88%) having recently read print and digital magazine media. in the past six months.
• Eighty-nine percent of 18-24-year-olds have read a magazine in that time in 2024.