Media buyers divided on News Corp’s pull from AMAA audit
News Corp’s decision to pull out of the Audited Media Association of Australia’s audit has divided media agencies, with some claiming not to have been consulted in News Corp’s “extensive review”, while others have called into question the publisher’s commitment to transparency.
The global media giant – which runs mastheads such as The Australian, The Herald Sun and The Daily Telegraph – announced yesterday it would withdraw from the AMAA circulation audit, with Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (EMMA) to provide audience data.
At the time of the announcement, News Corp said the decision had come following an extensive review with more than 100 advertisers and agencies. But the publisher declined to divulge to Mumbrella which agencies reviewed while a number of agencies, who prefer to remain anonymous, claim to have been excluded from the process.
Nunn Media’s managing director Chris Walton confirmed: “I was not approached and to my knowledge neither were any of our clients in Sydney.”
News Corp responded to the claims: “There were high level and confidential conversations.”
Other media agencies told Mumbrella readership data was important and the removal from the circulation is a step back from transparency.
Mike Wilson, CEO of Havas Media
“While readership surveys will still deliver the main metric for price comparison, the audit always gave agencies and clients a point of comparison by which to lend credence to the claimed readership numbers.
“It is probably fair to say that if methodologies don’t change, then the readership numbers should still reflect a consistent approach to audience delivery over time regardless of the audit. However, we feel that abandoning the circulation audit altogether may mean lower confidence levels in the printed product and potentially contribute to continued declines in revenue.”
Mark Coad, CEO, PHD
“Not really surprised by this move at all. As we’ve said all along – the industry (or specifically PHD as I can talk on behalf of) have always been far more interested in the audiences reading rather than the quantity of units distributed. We care about the number, quality and types of audiences that can be reached – and the more accurately we can measure those metrics, the better. Put simply EMMA and AAMA measure different things, and some of those things are more relevant to us than others.”
Chris Walton, managing director, Nunn Media
“I think it’s a ridiculous decision. Yes Emma is one metric and circulation is another metric. You do not use the two in isolation and you need both of them. Arguably the circulation is more important for newspapers than magazines. I don’t understand some of the relationships that I’m seeing between readership and circulation. Are we to believe Australians are getting more generous in recent years and sharing newspapers around more and more because the relationship between circulation and readerships has been changing in recent years?
“Everyone tries to compare readership with OzTam and also saying we don’t count the number of TV’s sold when appraising TV ads. Firstly readership is a claimed metric, thereby flawed at the outset and in need of support, and secondly you don’t need to buy a TV every time you need to consume TV or see ads.”
Tom Rankin, general manager of media, 303MullenLowe
“The less metrics we have for judging the success or failure of a print title, the worse off we are as an industry. Pulling out of audits that confirm paid circulation moves us further away from transparency.”
The Audited Media Association of Australia has also responded to News Corp’s decision to withdraw from the audit, asking the industry to consider the value of independent governance and validation.
Josanne Ryan, CEO of the AMAA said in a statement: “Is this a signal that the Australian industry accepts less transparency on industry media metrics and adherence to best practice? We hope not.
“Likewise, we hope this is not a shift away from industry managed self-regulation and the benefits of not-for-profit third party independent validation.
“The AMAA continues to call on the industry to consider the role of independent governance and validation as a vital resource that sits at the core of accountable media trading,” she said.
Similarly, Michele Levine, CEO of Roy Morgan Research, said there was a need for an independent research body to measure media.
“I’m sure the AMAA will be described as unnecessary expenditure. But it comes at a time when advertisers and their agencies are crying out for truth and accuracy in measurement,” Levine told Mumbrella.
“The time for media and their industry bodies (OzTAM, EMMA etc) measuring themselves is fast drawing to an end.
“The confluence of digital media, outdoor, direct, point of sale and traditional media means more than ever advertisers and their agencies want , and need, a single source of truth – not media’s own claims or industry’s own claims.”
topics
303 Mullenlowe
Chris Walton
Havas Media
Mark Coad
Mediahub
Mike Wilson
Nunn Media
PHD
Tom Rankin
transparency
The absence of critical, comment from the large media buyers is odd. Why would anyone trading and professionally recommending expenditure in media passively accept less transparency and independent measurement of media than we have now.
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Good piece Zoe. Nice to see someone not swallowing the News Corp spin.
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Will NewsCorp be pursued by the ATO and forced to pay some tax in Australia?
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How is this any different from Foxtel not publishing the amount of set top boxes? TV buyers use oztam ratings for audience on Foxtel, not an independantly audited amount of subscricptions.
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Oh yeah, just like how everyone cares that Facebook reports on its own metrics with zero transparency. Or the time they overestimated video views by 90%. Or claimed they reached a million more Aussies than currently exist in the country.
Still a stupid but very telling move by News.
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Because buying media care fee is the place to be!
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News’ circulation figures have always been a bit of a circus. How does it account for all the giveaways—if you’ve flown Qantas recently you will know what I mean. Its cover was blown with the problems it had explaining away the giveaway program with the European edition of the Wall Street Journal some years ago. And readership flows back through all this. Circulation is what matters: readership in newspapers is largely baloney.
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The removal of circulation audits from magazines ignored the importance of the primary reader. Isn’t someone who has paid $5 for their magazine worth more than someone flicking through a year old publication in the hairdressers? A failure of publishers to sell an important difference of the core buyer.
Like wise with newspapers. Is the person who buys a newspaper daily worth more as a core reader than being measured equal to the ridiculously high 10th pass on reader, by Emma?
News Corp’s release is an excuse not the reason.
They now can disguise a huge fall off of circulation as they pull back from distributing free copies.They will save $10 million+ a year.
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There are pros and cons to measuring both readership and circulation. As many will know, print readership data is traditionally collected by face to face interviewers asking ambiguous questions about how many times you read a specific paper in the last week or month. What classifies as reading? How big a sample is required to reflect readership accurately? Sure there are more advanced methods now for collecting aggregated print and digital audience data, but accuracy of the count is very questionable. Additional confusion exists around which source of readership data to use; the newer EMMA (Enhanced Media Metrics Australia) or Roy Morgan. When you review the print audience data (EMMA) versus the newspaper readership data (Morgan), the stated audience and readership numbers for print products differ substantially.
Circulation on the other hand added some accountability. Single copy and subscription copy sales are captured as average net paid sales, with transparency available on copies sold to non-traditional distribution channels (which are heavily discounted). Any growth in audience numbers would therefore imply more customers are now reading each copy sold. Something doesn’t add up. …. and this is what advertisers and buyers are rely on. Publishers changed the audited circulation reporting metric last year to go from quarterly to half yearly reporting in order to mask their circulation declines. Their sales dropped around -10% across the market; their discounted copies didn’t. Peel back the onion and you’ll see that this is about driving huge cost savings. Advertisers won’t have transparency over the huge cuts that News will not put through its production of newspapers. In August, The Sunday Telegraph reported weekly sales of 378,000 copies a week. That figure will be closer to 320,000 in the coming months, but you’ll never see it now. And News can now get on with selling positive stories whilst marking their own report card.
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Andrew Sardini – the bigger question to ask Mumbrella would be, who did they approach? Did anyone deny the chance to respond?
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