Fairfax Media, News Corp and APN News & Media have united in support of a new survey tool that could boost ad sales.
Industry body The Newspaper Works and research agency Ipsos have created Enhanced Media Metrics Australia, which calculates readership rather than circulation. 'Emma' operates across all platforms and even measures individual sections.
Emma could help publishers offer advertisers targeted access to more readers, according to a panel discussion that took place at a Sydney launch event on 19 August.
Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood said traditional circulation methods were outdated, because 75% of readers of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald accessed the mastheads online.
[Photos: Who was at the launch party?]
"We've never had audiences bigger than we have now… so it's only logical that we measure that," he told guests.
He said there was still an "endless demand" for news across all demographics. "We deliver an incredible service to our community – something people can't live without."
News Corp executive group director Jerry Harris said Emma was "an incredibly positive step" for the industry that would allow publishers to understand the changing way in which people were consuming media.
"Circulation doesn't tell you a great deal about audiences or the way they're behaving," he said.
APN chief executive Michael Miller said Emma's data could make advertising more attractive, because it would become easier for media buyers to identify their key readers.
Emma's daily surveying will use "face-to-face and web-based tools" to provide "greater reader recollection" and "a more accurate measure of audiences", said Ipsos chief executive Hamish Munro.
"Emma combines a survey of 54,000 Australians annually and the fusion of Nielsen Online Ratings with three other rich assets: a channel planning utility, a consumer profiling application and rich product data. And it’s all on one database," he said.
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