NRS To Produce Readership Figures For Publishers’ Websites

The National Readership Survey (NRS) is to begin an experimental programme to produce UK audience figures for publishers’ websites.

NRS says that if successful, this initiative means that the survey will be able to provide audience estimates and demographic profile data on the cross-platform reach of approximately 70 newspapers and magazines.

The programme will attempt to estimate the net reach of the printed product, the net reach of its website equivalent, and the net reach of the two combined.

The NRS website survey questions will be asked as a separate part of the main NRS interview: only those respondents indicating that they have accessed the internet within the last 12 months will be asked to participate.

The respondents will be asked general details about the type of websites they visit, before being asked about which specific sites they have visited and when they last visited them.

The 70 websites, which include a mixture of both newspapers and magazines’ websites, have been selected using data from Nielsen Net Ratings and ComScore Media Metrics.

The new questionnaire will go into the field in June and data could be released in early 2008 if the questionnaire proves successful.

As well as this new initiative, data from the first JICIMS broadband and internet usage study has now been released.

Roger Pratt, managing director of NRS, said: “This is a potentially significant development for the publishing industry; we are very excited at the prospect of adding the tracking of websites to the NRS.

“If the methodology proves successful, we will be able to give publishers and advertisers better tools to understand the consumption habits of consumers across both print and website platforms.”

In March, the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic announced that it will now be releasing web traffic figures for national newspaper websites on a fixed date each month (see ABCe To Regularly Release Web Traffic Figures For National Newspapers).

Monthly web statistics are now published alongside the ABC print newspaper figures in the Group Product Report.

NRS: 020 7242 8111 www.nrs.co.uk