EMMA ditched, Roy Morgan returns in industry measurement shake-up
Media industry alliance, Think News Brands, will cease to use its measurement platform, Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (EMMA), in favour of Roy Morgan’s ‘Total News’ metric from 1 July.
The organisation said this move comes after it “listened to the industry and acknowledged the need to implement a single unified readership metric for total news, produced by one entity rather than with multiple data sources”.
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Vanessa Lyons, general manager of ThinkNewsBrands
EMMA was founded prior to its implementation as the measurement metric by The Readership Works, using print readership data from Ipsos and Nielson for its monthly digital datings. It replaced Roy Morgan as the measurement body for the news industry some eight years ago. In July 2020, The Readership Works put the call out for expressions of tender for EMMA.
A number media buyers have in the past raised concerns about the publisher-funded EMMA. The program will be retired, just over half way through its five year extension with the two market research firms.
The new ‘Total News’ metric is touted to provide clarity across the industry for all advertisers, agencies and publishers, as it will now rely on a single measurement. This has been approved by all involved parties, in order to enable better campaign investment decisions through a simplified planning system.
“This is the outcome of the tender process which began in August last year,” Vanessa Lyons, recently appointed general manager of ThinkNewsBrands told Mumbrella.“This is really to simplify things, we wanted a single source, so that agencies, publishers and advertisers can look at news holistically.”
Think News Brands was founded by key Australian media owners, News Corp, Nine Entertainment Co and Seven West Media, to promote the value of premium news content as a partner for advertisers.
Numerous media outlets such as News Corp and Bauer Media (now Are Media) withdrew from the Audited Media Association of Australia, effectively killing the magazine audit industry in Australia, to focus on readership figures such as those provided by Roy Morgan Research and EMMA.
The return to Roy Morgan as the primary news readership measurement follows work between Think News Brands and the market research firm to further refine its readership methodology across news in both print and digital formats.
The statement said: “Think News Brands will continue to release quarterly readership data, now termed Total News, in conjunction with Roy Morgan, with the first data release scheduled for August. Current users of EMMA will retain access to historical data to conduct comparative analysis where required.”
This announcement comes on the same morning that IAB Australia revealed it will not be endorsing Nielsen’s new Digital Media Ratings, due for a “soft-launch” today, 22 April.
When the partnership begins in July, updates will be made within the Roy Morgan database such as the inclusion of additional publications and an upgrade of categories to more clearly represent the news platform as a whole.
Think News Brands will continue to release quarterly readership data, now termed Total News, in conjunction with Roy Morgan, with the first data release scheduled for August. Current users of EMMA will retain access to historical data to conduct comparative analysis where required.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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