Number of magazine readers in the U.S. 2012-2021

In 2021, there were 222.2 million magazine readers aged 18 or older in the United States. This marked an increase of 300 thousand readers from the previous year. The number dropped substantially between 2019 and 2020, which the source partially attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting reduction in pass-along reading. The figure for 2019, on the other hand, was the highest recorded since 2012, and trends during that period indicated a slow annual increase in the number of magazine readers.

Magazine reading behavior

Magazine readership is changing. On the one hand, data from surveys held in 2019 and 2020 found that print magazines remained the preferred magazine format, but there was also a growing interest in online versions. The audience of magazine brands was comprised mostly of readers of print magazine and their digital counterparts in December 2020, but mobile web came a very close second with a year-to-date average audience of over 625 million. If this trend continues, magazine brands’ mobile web visitors will account for the majority of their audience in the next one to two years.

Magazine brands

In 2020, the fastest-growing magazine brand in the United States was experiential travel publication Afar. The magazine's average monthly audience grew by almost 60 percent compared to the previous year, partly thanks to a boost in the publication's mobile web visitors. The most recently available data on other travel magazine brands found that several publications in that category enjoyed a large mobile web audience, and Condé Nast Traveler had a video audience of over 6.5 million. The leading consumer magazine in the United States by circulation in the first half of 2021 was AARP The Magazine, with a circulation of close to 23 million.