NRS Section Research Confirmed For 1997

This July will finally see the start of newspaper section readership added to the NRS. Following pilot studies which took place last autumn and in the spring, a running test will be added from 1^st July to half of the NRS sample.

This test will have to be run for around six months before stable data can be extracted, so by the beginning of 1997 the section questions could be rolled out to the whole of the survey. This means that initial results could be made available in the spring of next year.

The sections to be measured will not initially be all newspaper sections; this would be extremely difficult because of constant changing of sections and also respondent confusion. The sections covered will be the more stable magazine-style supplements, usually one or two for each paper, ie the business or travel sections will not be covered. However, Roger pointed out, by including these sections, the NRS survey will effectively be covering 85% of all adspend in the national newspaper market.

The addition of the section questions means the whole questionnaire is to be restructured. This strictly means that results will not be comparable with previous years. However, the control sample will allow NRS to have a benchmark of results, and Roger Pratt, managing director of NRS told MediaTel that he hopes any differences the additions may make to results will not be significant enough to matter.

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