MRG One Day Conference: Audience Accumulation Models

Alan Higgs, director of NOP Media, followed hard on the heels of Roger Pratt at the MRG one day conference, with his discussion of a new readership accumulation study commissioned under a completely separate contract from the main NRS survey.

Higgs pointed out that while the planning and buying of newspaper and magazine advertising is based almost purely on NRS data there has as yet been no hard data on how quickly readership accumulates. With this in mind the NRS is undertaking a readership accumulation study for all the titles published in the NRS volumes.

The study will track all of the national daily and Sunday papers as well as the top 60 magazines and their supplements. Diaries will be issued to over 8,000 respondents across the UK, who will record exactly when they first read a particular publication, the results will then be compared to a national database showing when each title was first available. The rate of readership accumulation will be calculated.

Higgs said that the dairies will take just two minutes each day to fill in and will produce a standard for the rate of average issue accumulation, which can be applied to existing the NRS readership models. He explained that similar research carried out in the USA revealed that many titles were available before their on sale date and in many cases had considerable longer shelf life than had previously assumed.

Higgs said that the results of the survey, which will be available in the Autumn of next year: “Will challenge previously held assumptions, providing media planners with robust data that will lead them to re-evaluate their schedules based on weekly reach.”

More information about the MRG conference can be found on the MRG website: www.mrg.org.uk