Could the NRS revolution spread to the other JICs?
With the National Readership Survey under review, questions about the nature of joint industry research remain. Could media owners choose to go it alone, asks Research the Media’s Richard Marks.
The opening panel at last week’s Future of Media Research conference was dominated by the debate around the JICs – the Joint Industry Councils that govern the different media currencies. It really boils down to three key questions:
– Does the meltdown of the National Readership Survey (NRS) have implications for the other JICs?
– Should JIC data collection move online?
– Are the JICs facing an existential crisis?
As a member of the panel at the hub of the debate, here’s my view from the stage.
The focus on the JICs was very much as a result of the ongoing tender process being conducted for a replacement for the current NRS survey. No doubt, rather like benevolent rulers watching a revolution in a neighbouring country, the question that the other JICs are – or should be – asking is ‘could it happen here?’
The NRS saga does demonstrate to the other JICs the dangers of effectively ‘becoming’ the survey they commission. The obvious question is why was the NRS itself not tasked to lead the search for an alternative methodology?
The JIC should be the vessel through which the industry commissions currency measurement, using a system that is fit for purpose but one that can be amended or completely overhauled if necessary. The problem was that, to many, NRS the survey had become the same as NRS the industry body. People have to believe change is possible within the existing democratic system. If not, then talk turns to revolution.
Before the Mediatel debate, Jens Torpe, co-founder of City A.M. gave a keynote that highlighted three requirements for a new readership system: cross-platform measurement, engagement and immediacy. Let us assume these were the drivers behind the NRS ‘revolution’, its equivalent of ‘lliberté, égalité, fraternité.’ How relevant are they to the other UK JICs?
Undoubtedly, cross-platform is an issue for all. However, it is far more pressing for the news industry with most newsbrands now having online readerships far outstripping their print vehicles. Indeed, many have overseas online readerships larger than in the UK, which presents a whole new challenge.
Engagement, whilst a buzzword for the last few decades, is an issue unique to the NRS when it comes to currency measurement.”
The issue for the JICs is not whether to encompass cross-platform, but how much resource to allocate to it. In the case of readership, the newsbrands reckoned online and mobile measurement was so important that the current system needed to be completely rebooted, that the NRS PADD ‘bolt on’ wasn’t enough: revolution not evolution.
However BARB’s PADD equivalent, Project Dovetail, may be more fit-for-TV-purpose with the vast bulk of viewing likely to remain on the main domestic television set. The primary focus remains the meter panel.
RAJAR arguably already has a system adaptable to cross-platform measurement. Whilst the source of the radio listening is changing, the size of the repertoire of stations people listen to isn’t, leaving the recall approach arguably the most fit-for-purpose and certainly the most easily adapted to measure across platforms.
As a newer, online JIC, UKOM is by its very nature cross-platform, whilst Route already deploys a ‘hybrid’ approach in combining out-of-home data from different sources. So the other JICS have to rise to the cross-platform challenge, but are less at risk of being chucked over the castle walls, so long as they don’t drag their feet or diverge from the priorities of the stakeholders.
Engagement, whilst a buzzword for the last few decades is, I firmly believe, an issue unique to the NRS when it comes to currency measurement. Its importance is related to the very nature of print, which is unlikely to be read ‘in the background’. The newsbrands and magazine companies need a metric that will differentiate them qualitatively from online aggregators purveying lists of the top ten canine onesies.
Some have argued that TV and radio need engagement metrics, but this tends to simplify the way in which advertising works. There is certainly a need for more ROI data, but this may be more a case of having JIC systems that can plug into other data sets, as opposed to ROI or engagement needing to be measured within the system itself.
With billions of pounds of advertising at risk across the JICs, the highest quality foundation to a survey is important – and that tends to be face-to-face.”
Also, a significant proportion of TV and radio is funded by subscription or licence fee as opposed to advertising. Meanwhile, as comScore’s Stuart Wilkinson highlighted on Newsline last week, they will need to be able to interface with programmatic trading systems.
The demand for engagement measures in the new readership system reflects the wide range of business models that the new survey will have to support. I recently wrote a chapter for a Newsworks annual publication (Influence: Newsbrands in 2014 and Beyond). I highlighted the challenges the current system faces serving the needs of publishers variously chasing global online reach, building subscriber relationships behind pay-walls or successfully focusing on free print distribution. The new survey will need to be highly adaptable.
With regard to immediacy, having cross-platform press data available more frequently than quarterly will be essential, but there is little demand amongst the subscribers to the other JICs for more frequent data. Overly frequent or ‘real time’ data leads to additional cost on the client side to ingest it for minimal additional benefit.
In terms of methodology, City A.M’s Jens Torpe called for a move to online data collection, citing the larger sample sizes that would enable more robust measurement of the long tail. He rightly drew parallels with 90s scepticism about telephone research.
Certainly with 85%+ of the UK living in broadband homes the arguments about the representativeness of online samples start to wane. However, the point about the analogy with telephone is that although telephone research became accepted it did not replace face-to-face interviewing.
Face-to-face has advantages when it comes to geographical control (so important for media), transparent response rates (to avoid skews to heavy users) and for the careful explanation of tasks like PeopleMeters and RAJAR diaries.
I would anticipate that a higher proportion of the new readership survey budget will be allocated to online measurement, reflecting the business split of the sponsors. However, with billions of pounds of advertising at risk across the JICs, the highest quality foundation to a survey is important and that tends to be face-to-face.
Going it alone may decrease the size of the overall pie as advertisers lose faith in the medium as a whole.”
As I discussed at the Mediatel debate, the biggest challenge to face-to-face is not its perceived benefits, but its continued viability. Pre-selected face-to-face is now almost exclusively the domain of media currencies and government social surveys. Few others can justify the cost. As a result, the number of providers is contracting to the point where the issue may become less about its desirability and more about its continued availability. The research agencies struggle to recruit face-to-face interviewers in an employment market full of zero hours contracts and centrally-heated call centres.
So where does this leave the JICS? Are they facing the ‘existential crisis‘ cited by Simon Redican of NRS? I would agree up to a point. BARB continually needs to review exactly where television stops and online video starts and whether a demarcation is relevant from a consumer perspective. Meanwhile the RAB’s recent Audio Now survey – using RAJAR’s MIDAS data – shows that radio is now operating in a wider, audio streaming context.
However, existential angst is actually healthy if it reflects a desire to stay relevant. Any ‘regime’ has to demonstrate that it reflects the needs of its electors to avoid revolution. Yet in terms of the vibrancy of the JIC system itself, for me it boils down to one simple equation:
The JICs will remain so long as the advantages to the industry as a whole outweigh the perceived benefits to media owners of going it alone.
Going it alone may increase your share of the pie, as you can sell using data that – surprise, surprise – shows your brand in a better light. Yet going it alone may decrease the size of the overall pie as advertisers lose faith in the medium as a whole.
Justin Sampson, CEO of BARB, drew an analogy between the JIC system and the Bank of England: impartial, for the benefit of all, underpinning a (literal) currency system. That is at the heart of the JIC system – balancing the needs of the many with the needs of the few.
Perhaps the question is not ‘is the JIC system at risk?’ but actually whether the JIC system of transparency, credibility and mutual benefit should be expanded into the newer areas of digital activity
As RAJAR’s CEO Jerry Hill put it, perhaps the question is not ‘is the JIC system at risk?’ but actually whether the JIC system of transparency, credibility and mutual benefit should be expanded into the newer areas of digital activity.
So what of the ‘NRS’ revolution itself? After the barricades have been stormed, a new government is needed and Lynne Robinson, the IPA’s research director, confirmed that the new survey will be commissioned and overseen by a ‘NewCo’ made up of newsbrands and magazines.
That sounds pretty much like a JIC to me!