NRS To Investigate Options For Change
The National Readership Survey (NRS) has announced plans to “investigate options for change” within the surveys’s methodology, as well as extending the scope of information that it delivers to the UK media industry.
The research represents the first step in a long term programme investigating three important areas of NRS activity. The possibility of aligning NRS estimates with ABC circulation figures will be assessed in the first round of investigation, with the aim to find a way to remove or minimise the divergence that can occur between data from the two sources.
The second stage will look at the possibility of de-coupling the process of surveying newspaper and magazine readership. NRS aims to continue to provide a single source of print readership data by merging the two streams of research before publication.
In order to provide a greater understanding of readership habits, and the relationship between readers and publications, the third initiative will be to consider opportunities for providing more in depth readership information.
The NRS will also launch an industry-wide census of media planners, press buyers and press sales personnel who use the survey on a day-to-day basis.
Commenting on the new initiative, Simon Marquis said: “I have joined the NRS at an exciting and challenging time. Newspapers have changed radically in recent years, offering readers more and more sections and the magazine market has exploded with new titles.”
He continued: “The NRS has proven itself to be one of the more innovative media research programmes, being for example the first readership survey in the world to use computerised interviews for both newspapers and magazines.”
The latest NRS data for the national daily newspapers continued to see readership decline year on year in the six months to February, with the market as a whole seeing a downturn of 2.64% on the same period last year (see NRS National Newspaper Round-Up: February 2005 NRS National Newspaper Round-Up: February 2005 ).
NRS: 020 7242 8111 www.nrs.co.uk