Roy Morgan has released the latest readership results for Australian newspapers in 2018.

The report revealed over 15.7 million, or 76.9 per cent of Australians aged 14 and older read or access newspapers in print or online over a 7 day period.

This is a fall of 1.3 per cent from 2017.

While most of Australia’s leading newspapers saw a decline in cross-platform readership, a select few managed to come out on top.

The Herald Sun grew its digital audience to over 2 million, and the Australian Financial Review also increased its digital audience by 1.2 per cent to over 1.1 million readers.

Western Australia’s leading newspaper the West Australian grew its print readership 7.3 per cent to nearly 750,000 and The Saturday Paper saw strong growth across print readership, digital audience and total cross-platform audience.

Australia’s most widely read masthead continues to be the Sydney Morning Herald – with a cross-platform audience of 4,135,000, which is 2.8 per cent from a year ago.

Despite a decline in readership, the SMH increased its lead over Sydney rival the Daily Telegraph, which now has a cross-platform audience of 2,989,000, down 13.3 per cent in a year.

Conversely, additional data from Roy Morgan revealed 74.2 per cent of Australians read magazines whether in print or online, either via the web or an app.

That is up 1.2 per cent from a year ago.

Readership of solely print magazines was just under 12.6 million Australians up 0.2 per cent

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said:“In contrast to those who might question the future of print publications it is print magazines that Australians continue to turn to.

“Nearly 12.6 million Australians read a print magazine in the year to December 2018, an increase of 0.2 per cent on a year ago”.