The national newspaper industry has today announced that it will be taking steps to establish a contemporary audience measurement system that reflects the way people consume news across print, laptops, tablets and mobile.
The review means that Newsworks, the marketing body for national newspapers, will oversee the appointment of a consultant to investigate the strategic audience measurement requirements of the main players in the newspaper industry.
The NPA will serve a statutory 18-month notice on the National Readership Service (NRS) – the body which currently administers the industry audience measurement system which covers both national newspapers and magazines. The NRS service will continue as normal during this review.
Newsworks stakeholders – including dmg media, ESI Media, Guardian Media Group, News UK, Telegraph Media Group and Trinity Mirror – have committed to creating a solution that feeds into its new Publisher Advertising Transaction System (PATS), which is currently in test phase with agencies and launching in 2015.
“It is important that we have an audience measurement system that captures the way in which people now consume media,” said Rufus Olins, chief executive of Newsworks.
“The landscape has changed beyond recognition in the past few years and the pace of change is accelerating. We need to be at the forefront of that change, helping advertisers and agencies make sense of it.
“The first step will be to scope the requirements for a system that is robust and will gain acceptance among advertisers and agencies, as well as media owners.”
Advertisers and agencies have welcomed the initiative.
Matthew Platts, president of Amplifi UK, said: “There is a real need to find consistent audience measurement metrics in the newly converged media landscape.
“There are some important questions that need to be answered and there is no doubt that we need to look again at the tools we have got. We need to work together on this.”
MediaTel will be holding its own debate on the Future of National Newspapers in September, with panellists including Trinity Mirror’s James Wildman, News UK’s Abba Newbery and the Independent and Evening Standard’s Chris Blackhurst. See our events page for details.
