With four days off for many people over the Easter break, people look to maximise how they enjoy the days. One pleasure some enjoy doing is loading up with magazines, a habit many still love despite the challenges of finding time to indulge the passion.
Here Mediaweek looks at some favourite ways to enjoy the best from what is still a thriving, albeit smaller, media sector.
Readly: All you can eat for $10 monthly
Magazines are still very much a thing with publishers big and small making a living from the sector across Australia and internationally.
We no longer are able to count titles’ health by the number of copies sold (a stat not shared now), but by the total readers from data gathered in Morgan Readership surveys.
One must-have for any lover of magazines and how they curate their content is Readly.
The Swedish-based aggregator of digital versions of magazines has been around since 2012. While it has attracted subscribers across the globe, it is going through a period of increased focus on profitability.
The company offers a digital subscription service that lets customers have unlimited access to around 7,500 magazines and newspapers. Readly has subscribers in more than 50 countries and content available in 17 different languages. In collaboration with 1200 publishers worldwide, Readly is helping digitise the magazine industry.
Just earlier this month Readly announced plans to restructure its workforce and take measures to further improve the company’s competitive position. The restructuring includes a reduction of approximately 30 positions including consultants. Product development and innovation will see further investments, but the recent price increase in the UK will be followed by additional markets during 2022.
Now would be a good time to test the service. In Australia the cost is still just $10 a month although as the company warned, that could soon increase here.
There are an impressive number of Australian titles on the Readly platform, including titles from major publishers like Are Media, News Corp Australia, nextmedia, Lovatts Media and a handful of independents.
While Readly is seen by some as a threat to the traditional print distribution model, it is also a way for many to trial titles they would otherwise not read. Some of those digital browsers then become casual newsstand sales or print subscribers.
Readly still offers new Australian subscribers first month free.
Helping you eat: delicious an Easter treat
Although the News Corp Australia monthly food brand comes under the watchful eye of busy editorial director Kerrie McCallum, looking after the title’s operations is delicious editor-in-chief Samantha Jones.
Chocoholics are always catered for in the magazine and this year’s Easter edition (April 2022) is no exception. The cover features a mouth-watering tiramisu brownie.
Easter treats inside include a recipe for rum & raisin hot cross buns. There is also an eight-page section on the delights of mocha – “chocolate plus coffee equals bliss!” claims the magazine. The magazine features trademark brilliant food photography every edition, with great work on the mocha spread by Brett Stevens.
Delicious
Newsstand $9.50
Subscribe $80 (11 issues)
Readily digital edition $10 monthly (+ 7,499 other titles available!)
Food and travel: Gourmet Traveller the perfect combination
Are Media’s glossy monthly combines two of life’s great pleasures – food and travel. The annual Italian issue has had to satisfy readers with food for the past two years as international travel was out of the question for Australian readers.
Gourmet Traveller editor Joanna Hunkin writes this month in the April edition how she is looking forward to travelling again. However she reveals she has one destination to tick off her list before a return to Italy – a trip home to New Zealand to visit family after the borders across the Tasman are finally open again.
The April Gourmet Traveller recaps the recent Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Awards (actually held in 2021), an event that was previously held pre-Covid in 2019.
There is plenty of Italian food recipes in the issue and the travel includes how Venice is planning its future as a sustainable city, a look at life in a Tuscan villa, a portfolio that includes a guide to Rome and a chef’s guide to Trapani.
Gourmet Traveller
Newsstand $10
Subscribe $70 (12 issues)
Also available on Readily
More food and travel for your Easter to-do list
International Traveller (Australian Traveller Media)
Australian Traveller (Australian Traveller Media)
Travel + Luxury (Monthly in The Australian)
Nourish (Plant-based living from Lovatts Media)
Market Magazine (Harris Farm Markets magazine edited by Julia Zaetta and a must-have at $2.99 if bought inside one of their stores)