NRS Under Fire

Question time at the end of Friday’s first conference session provided some of the liveliest debate so far – concentrating almost solely on the usefulness of the NRS.

Earlier papers from Rosemary Taylor, Research Director at Optimedia, and Neil Shepherd-Smith, Research Director at Telmar, had set the mood; both often highly critical of the NRS.

Bob Hulks (BARB) defended industry surveys from the conference floor; “there was precious little evidence of requested new data being used”. Clients also showed their lack of interest, with a recent Marketing week conference “Clients and Media Research” cancelled due to low numbers.

Rosemary Taylor’s assertion that more data must be available through NRS, specifically section readership was backed by Phil Gullen and Alan Copage. The latter felt that the NRS was always held back by media owners’ vested interests.

From the floor, Dawn Mitchell (RSL) expressed the view that industry surveys cannot solve all problems and that in fact the NRS was a relatively inexpensive survey (RSL has bigger single clients). “Experimental research should be done outside the NRS”; experiences abroad proved this. Rosemary Taylor attacked this as “complacent”.

Peter Bowman (WCRS) cited examples of NRS working parties floundering after years of debate – again because of media owner unwillingness to accept new research options. He proposed a BARB style panel as a solution to many of the problems.

Alan Copage backed the call for a panel, but felt cost would prevent it getting off the ground. Erhart Meier (RSL) accepted that a panel would be ideal but pointed out that it would under-estimate pass-on readership. The debate ended with Neil Shephard- Smith’s call for greater use of source of copy data – the most “robust” figures available. A recent RSL study had shown that “source of copy was understood and readily assessed by respondents.”

This one looks likely to run and run.