News Corp is now exclusively using Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (Emma) as its audience metric provider, and will no longer be publishing audited data from the CAB, ABC or AMAA.
The company says it made the choice after an extensive review with more than 100 advertisers and media agencies that highlighted the existing print circulation metric is no longer a representative measure of cross-platform audiences. Consequently, News Corp will withdraw its titles from the Audited Media Association of Australia’s (AMAA), Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and Circulation Audit Board (CAB), effective immediately with the January to June 2017 circulation audit being the last.
Michael Miller, executive chairman for News Corp Australasia says, “We have consulted with and listened to our advertiser and media agency partners and it is clear that circulation is not an indicator of how media is consumed today, and is out of step with how the advertising industry now operates.
“Media buyers and advertisers plan media based on the audience that engages with our mastheads, not the number of papers sold. Total audience is the chosen metric that our advertisers and media buyers now use to make their media buying decisions and to compare alternatives across all main media, so it’s a natural course of action for us to meet the market by using one, primary metric.”
[Related: News Corp Q1 revenue rises]
The AMAA in particular has been a provider of circulation data for 80 years and has two audits: one measuring paid-for distribution and one measuring circulation, including titles given for free. News Corp is the only major publisher to withdraw from it.
Emma’s total cross-platform audience readership shows a single view of both digital (PC, smartphone and tablet) and print audiences, to provide accurate, monthly readership as measured by Ipsos. The metric is independently audited and draws from a survey base of more than 40,000 Australians every month.
Miller says, “As the industry’s independent and accredited cross-platform audience insights survey, Emma provides the most complete picture of readership today. We have therefore decided to adopt Emma as our primary audience metric, given that it captures total audience – not just the number of copies printed and sold. Emma has the sophistication, depth, credibility and frequency to provide an accurate and complete picture of our audiences.”
Emma was introduced in 2013 by Ipsos as a media and consumer insights survey with a range of variables including demographics, media consumption, lifestyles, psychographics and a range of product and service insights. Each month the Emma data in Australia is combined with Nielsen Digital Ratings Monthly data to provide a total audience metric.
Miller says, “We are committed to seeing our titles grow and thrive. As news is consumed across many platforms and our audiences grow and evolve, our measurement must give a complete audience picture. Agencies and advertisers want transparency, accuracy and a higher frequency of data as well as accountability for investment, all of which Emma delivers.”
Ipsos conducts more than 40 media surveys across the globe, including the National Readership Survey (NRS) in the UK.
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