‘We’re bigger in Australia than Facebook’, claims News Corp as first audience numbers under new methodology are released
Australia’s largest publisher News Corp has overtaken Facebook in monthly audience reach, new data from the newspaper industry-funded readership metric EMMA suggests.
Publisher numbers across the board have risen after a change to the methodology involved the Ipsos-powered readership survey combining with Nielsen’s new aggregated mobile and desktop data, Digital Reach (Monthly) to deliver a number combining print, desktop and mobile readership.
The numbers, released today, suggest News Corp’s various mastheads reach a combined print and digital audience of 15.965m Australians aged over 14. According to the same combined EMMA and DRM data, Facebook’s reach is 14.934m
News Corp issued a statement saying: “It’s official – our cross-platform audience is now bigger than Facebook’s. Today’s EMMA data, in combination with Nielsen’s new DRM confirms that no-one comes close to the reach and engagement that we have with Australians.”
Armstrong: “Fairfax’s digital network reached 10.8 million people”
Fairfax Media has also experienced boosts to its claimed reach – up to 12.9m Australians from 11.1m in December last year. However, the two numbers are not directly comparable because of the change in methodology. In December, EMMA numbers saw News Corp attributed a reach of 14.8m.
Fairfax’s commercial and marketing services director, Tom Armstrong was eager to push the strength of its combined digital and print audience. “Fairfax Media reached 12.m – or seven in 10 Australians aged 14-plus – in February, demonstrating the strength and scale of our network in reaching and engaging with audiences across print and digital platforms.
“Fairfax’s digital network reached 10.8 million people, which reflects the fast progress we have made in growing digital audiences.”
The publisher-funded readership metric EMMA has been around since August 2013 but has struggled to gain significant traction with media agencies with many preferring to trade on rival Roy Morgan Research’s numbers.
Facebook has been invited to comment.
Nic Christensen
Facebook must be trembling with fear!
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“Publisher-funded readership metric EMMA.”
Well that’s about as reliable as the Coal industry’s climate modelling.
Nice try, though.
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It’s the change in Nielsen DRM methodology that has lifted the numbers not the emma derived print data !
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Does their calculation of mobile readership include links from Facebook?!
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Remember when Rupert bought MySpace? That was cool….
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Hi Jen – so you believe OzTAM TV audience data (sponsored by the TV industry), CRA radio audience data (sponsored by the radio industry), MOVE outdoor audience data (sponsored by the outdoor industry) …. all the industry media audience metrics are sponsored by the media owners. emma is no different.
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DRM = Dramatically Revised Measures
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Reaching someone once a month is not the same as reaching them multiple times every single day
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Stats don’t lie. Good spin by News Corp. I think Facebook would like to say that Emma stats about newspapers are for right now in 2016! The stats above don’t predict future trends. Can Emma tell us if young people are picking up the buying a newspaper habit? And if not, shan’t the newspaper stats ski slope as time goes by?
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I didn’t think these numbers measured App reach?
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Sounds like Murdoch has been listening to a bit too much Lennon, bigger than Jesus much?
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That’s pretty funny. Should have published this April 1st.
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The gold is in FB’s single sign-on data, as we all know.
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“All the industry media audience metrics are sponsored by the media owners.”
Exactly.
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I heard Facebook have been quick to copy this methodology and will tomorrow confidently announce there are 50% more people using their properties in Australia, than there are people in Australia
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Apples vs Oranges.
1) Does this include App usage? or just URL
2) Many organisations block Facebook domain on internal and wifi network to reduce degradation of productivity for obvious reasons.
3) In the case of above, I would confidently go to News for my info. The same way you instinctively know to use REA instead of Domain for property search.
4) Who goes to News.com.au on mobile unless you had to or it was already a linked article within Facebook? What about referral traffic from social media?
5) Analytics… data is king as opposed to survey results. Lets see the traffic
6) Have the overlaps in print and digital audience been de-duplicated? And if so, HOW so?
7) IF NOT… then as a facebook user, do I count as 5x people since I have 5 digital devices connected?
8) Case in point.. if there is 1x PC at home and 4x individuals (over 14yrs with mobile devices) who share the pc, then do they count for 8x audiences?
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“All the industry media audience metrics are sponsored by the media owners.”
Nope, Nielsen, Morgan et al are completely independent companies.
This is the same EMMA that reported a “surge” in magazine sales and said 57% of 18-25 year olds _never_ watched television…
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News: do not bite off the hand that feeds you! The end.
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Harold,
thanks for pointing out we are independent. Check out Roy Morgan Audiences
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2_QfRyImB8&feature=youtu.be
Tim
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Emma is a sad joke. No-one outside the dinosaur publishers pays any attention to it.
The problem isn’t the fundamental methodology, it’s the way the data is twisted and misrepresented. This story is a good example.
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@Ronald
“2) Many organisations block Facebook domain on internal and wifi network to reduce degradation of productivity for obvious reasons.”
Oh please. Are you seriously insinuating that people will not check their phone, on their own data plan? Far out!?
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Unwittingly News has revealed the flaw in news media chasing traffic. Because if we had the real numbers I reckon FB revenue against its oz traffic would be a big multiple of news web revenue.
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@Rational Observer.
Line, Sinker and Hook. Exactly my point. Thank you!
If you knew you could access anything on your phone… Facebook or News?
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Just when you thought this garbage and tainted print media would all disappear. … please someone design an APP to keep it out of my system.
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Just for clarity about media research ‘sponsorship’.
The majority of ‘currency’ audience metrics are primarily funded by the media owners (they pick up something like 80% of the tab).
This does NOT however mean that there isn’t industry oversight. Every industry currency I have ever worked on has involved a mixture of media owners, media buyers, advertisers, research companies, and research specialists.
There is a mixture of the industry owning the data (e.g. OzTAM) and the research company owning the data (e.g. Morgan). It’s horses for courses, and our job as media buyers is to stretch the research funds as far as possible and as accurately as possible.
And Australia’s model is the envy of most countries in the world.
Cheers.
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Hi John,
Just to follow on with this thread and add further detail. Roy Morgan is truly industry independent. We provide our clients (brands, agencies and media owners) with Single Source which deliers highly accurate and transparent measure of media reach and audience metrics which are used by many in the Australian industry as the ‘currency’ of choice. We fund this ourselves with no ‘sponsorship’ or oversight by the industry bodies. Agreed Australia is the envy of the world, not in the least due to the role that Roy Morgan has played in innovating, leading and shaping the media research market in Australia . Cheers Tim
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