Media agencies accuse magazine industry of “lack of interest” in improving transparency

The magazine and newspaper industries have been accused by Australia’s media agencies of failing to take seriously their requests for greater transparency about sales.

The Media Federation of Australia held its AGM yesterday. In a report issued this morning, the MFA said that although some “slow” progress had been made with the newspaper industry over circulation information, the magazine sector had shown “a lack of interest”. It said:

“In terms of readership metrics, the MFA has continued to work collaboratively alongside The Newspaper Works throughout the tender process and shall continue to support the efforts of driving improved metrics in this area. Additionally there are representatives that participate in the Roy Morgan Readership forum to help evolve the existing system.

“However, in the area of circulation the response has been slow. Newspapers have encouragingly been working towards a possible solution, however the MFA and its members were clear in that continuing with 13 week rolling average figures reported on a monthly basis would not generate any benefits over the current reporting system. The biggest area of disappointment is the apparent lack of interest from the magazine sector. The MFA will continue to place the priority of its efforts with those sectors that have shown an appetite to increase audience data transparency and accuracy.