The Age has once again kept its crown as Victoria’s most-read masthead, commanding a cross-platform readership of more than 4.5 million, fresh Roy Morgan figures have revealed.

This makes the newspaper Australia’s second-most read news brand, with one in five Australians choosing to read The Age to stay informed, and puts it ahead of competitor the Herald Sun by 450,000 readers.

The Walkley Award-winning investigative series Building Bad, the masthead’s Olympics and Paralympics coverage and assassination attempts on Donald Trump boosted subscriber numbers in the three months to September.

“Last week’s haul of 11 Walkley Awards recognised the commitment we have to exposing corruption and neglect, from the union movement to the spread of toxic ‘forever chemicals’ in the water supply,” executive editor Luke McIlveen said.

“These are the biggest national stories of the year, but The Sydney Morning Herald and Age editors Bevan Shields and Patrick Elligett have built our growing subscription business by breaking news that affects their cities – from the housing crisis gripping Sydney and Melbourne to the failures of the justice system in NSW and Victoria.”

The Age’s Monday-to-Friday print edition has an average readership of 244,000, while the Saturday edition reaches 387,000 readers.

“In addition to being Melbourne’s most-read publication, The Age continues to enjoy stronger-than-expected subscriber growth. This shows it’s not just Walkley Award judges who are recognising the quality of our journalism,” Age editor Patrick Elligett said.

Good Food, published across both The Herald and The Age, holds a total readership of 1.62 million, a 76 per cent increase on last year.

Traveller has grown 15 per cent in the past quarter to 1.47 million readers, while Good Weekend reaches 684,000 people on average. Sunday Life and Domain both notched a 3 per cent increase for the quarter to 368,000 and 469,000 respectively.