Seven in ten adults in the UK read magazine brands each month; that’s 39 million adults. For context, that’s more people than use Instagram each month (36 million) and more than the monthly visitors to Ebay (31 million).

The latest PAMCo data release shows that consumers favour reading magazine content online with 31.6 million visiting magazine websites each month. However, whist digital content is more popular, 36% of adults in the UK (around 20 million people) continue to read print magazines each month.

Digital magazine content has universal appeal with all age groups reading. 9.5 million 15-34s, 10.9 million 35-54s, and 11.1 million 55+ readers.

Print magazines remain popular with over 55’s audiences, with 9.5 million accessing their content in print. Print magazines are particularly efficient at reaching this group with an index of 125.

The latest data from PAMCo also shows that magazine media continues to reach many important communities. The consumer magazine market represents the LGBTQ+ community with 1.7 million magazine readers who identify as something other than straight/heterosexual – That’s 76% of this group.

Print magazines are particularly efficient at reaching an audience who have a long term disability. (117 index).

Highlights

20 million UK adults read print magazines every month (36.5%).

31.5 million UK adults read magazine content online each month (58%)

Magazines over-index for women across all channels, but especially strongly in print (110 overall, 125 in print, and 109 in digital)

Digital magazine content over-indexes for 35-54’s (110)

Print over-indexes for 55+ (125)

Audience of 1.7 million who identify as something other than heterosexual (76%)

Audience of 5.7 million disabled readers across print and digital. Over index for print media (117)

Male audience:

17 million men read magazine media each month

7.2 million in print and 13.9 million online

The magazine media audience is fairly evenly split by age between 15-34 (29%), 35-54 (33%) and 55+ (38%)

Print magazines are especially effective at reaching the 55+ male audience (index 131) and audience of 3.5 million

4.4% of male magazine readers (750k) are not heterosexual. This is a slight over-index at 109 and equates to 72% of this community reading magazines each month

Female audience:

21.5 million women (79%) read magazine media each month

12.3 million (45.5%) in print and 17.1 million (63%) online

The readership is spread across age groups with 5.9 million 15-34’s (75% of age group), 6.9 million 35-54’s (83% of age group), and 8.6 million 55+ (79% of age group)

Digital magazine media over-indexes for 35-54 indexing 111

Print over-indexes strongly for 55+ (121)

Magazines reach 13.3 million ABC1 women and 8.1 million C2DE women monthly

Magazine media reaches 3.4 million women with long term disabilities each month

The most recent PAMCo data release (PAMCo H1 2023) covers the period June 21 to June 23 fused with June 2023 iris data.