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The Audit Bureau of Circulations has released its first Consolidated Media Report, conducted on behalf of Advertising Age, which generates an audience estimate based on print circulation, pass-along readership and web visitors – but some members of the Newspaper Association of America claim the report is not particularly useful.
Because the report does not provide identifying information of online visitors that would allow an accurate comparison against subscription lists, there is no way to know how much overlap is being reported, according to MediaPost. “Right now they’re positioning it as a net figure, but it’s not a net figure, because it’s not extracting the duplication between print and online readership,” says Gary Kromer, director of research for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and a member of the Newspaper Association of America’s Research Federation.
The ABC is offering the report mainly for business publications, but consumer publications have shown interest, as well.
Scarborough Research, the top choice for planning newspaper buys, has offered a different option to the ABC’s approach to reporting consolidated media audiences. Scarborough claims that people who read a paper’s website who don’t also read its printed edition account for about 15 percent of the paper’s total audience (see white paper PDF here). This is good news for newspapers, which are facing declining circulations and ad revenue.
Whether newspapers will make use of such consolidated audience data is unclear, but they are clearly opposed to the method chosen by the ABC to report business publications, according to the article.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations has been attempting to expand its core competency of circulation audits, especially as that practice has generated criticism in recent years following highly publicized scandals based on inflated circulation figures. The ABC is also facing potential competition as BPA Worldwide works to create a process for consumer magazine members to report top-line circulation data as frequently as issue-by-issue.
Mediamark Research Inc. is also testing a new service that will reveal issue-specific data on the rate at which magazines accumulate readership.
The topic of measurement has been a hot one in recent months among media buyers, as different media – including television, radio and outdoor, in addition to print – explore various ways of capturing precise audience data. Often, the sellers of media – television networks and radio groups, for example – differ greatly in their opinion of what measurement makes sense from the buyers of media. The higher the audience a seller can claim, the more they can charge per CPM.
More articles on measurement:
Television
ABC Won’t Deal with Agencies Insisting on Live Only
Magna Global to Nielsen: We Won’t Use New Data
Networks to Yield to Buyers, Opt for ‘Live Only’
Nielsen to Offer Fourth Set of DVR Data
Nielsen to Supply Commercial Ratings
Nielsen Delays Release of VOD Measurement
Outdoor:
Nielsen Outdoor Rolls Out Npod in S. Africa
Nielsen Delivers Outdoor Ratings to Advisory Board, Responds to TAB’s RFP
Nielsen Reveals Outdoor Ratings Findings
Radio:
Radio Measurement Scramble Heats Up
Clear Channel: Two Dozen Proposals to Build a Better People Meter
Clear Channel Names Ratings Finalists, Ipsos Challenges Arbitron
Clear Channel Narrows Measurement System Field to Three
Differences Between PPM & Diary Measurements
Nielsen Bows out of PPM Measurement