US ABC Steps Up Cross-Media Measurement Plans
America’s Audit Bureau of Circulations has taken a further step towards introducing aggregated audience figures, after its board approved plans to develop various cross-media measurements for ABC reports this week.
The board revealed plans to use data from a newspaper research firm to produce in-market net audience figures, combining print and online readership without duplication, according to Stateside reports.
With data from the research company, the ABC and the Newspaper Association of America, the new service could give publishers the option of providing advertisers and planners with print and online readership in a combined net audience figure.
The reports predict that the figure could be included in ABC newspaper reports as early as September of this year in the US.
When ABC launched the initial proposal for the service, some newspaper executives were critical, saying ABC was positioning the figure as a measure of total audience reach, although it was not extracting duplications between offline and online readership to determine net audience.
Since then, the auditor has co-operated with the research firm it is involved with to import data that does extract duplication between offline and online readership.
Gary Meo, senior vice president for Scarborough, the research company, was reported as saying: “Demonstrating the strength of combined print and internet audience is critical to the future of the newspaper industry.”
Recently the World Association of Newspapers launched an initiative aimed at developing a new measurement standard for newspaper readership across print and digital.
It has set up a Media Measurement Integration Task Force to explore the possibility of creating a global standard for combined print and digital measurements (see WAN To Develop Measurement Standard For Digital And Print Newspapers).
Last summer NewsLine reported that the ABC in the UK was working with media owners to evolve the currency to provide an enhanced cross-platform report where required and appropriate.
According to the organisation’s CEO, Chris Boyd, there was at the time no call from media buyers in Britain for the audited data across the various platforms to be provided on a net basis (see Cross-Platform Net ABC Measure Not Yet Needed In UK).
“The UK media industry, especially the buyers of advertising, have specifically stated in the recent past that they do not want ABC to aggregate different platforms, apart from the B2B sector where print and ‘exact replica’ digital editions are now allowed to be reported as one figure,” he said.
“Additionally the principle of adding audited and research data together would need detailed consideration before being adopted.”
NewsLine also recently reported that online newspaper websites are rapidly increasing in popularity as their print counterparts continue to suffer falling circulation figures, according to audited data from ABC and ABCe (see Newspapers’ Print Circulations Decline As Web Traffic Blossoms).
Subscribers to MediaTel.co.uk can now access combined ABC/ABCe reports in the Online and Press databases.
ABC: 01442 870 800 www.abc.org.uk ABC Electronic: 01442 870 800 www.abce.org.uk