News Corp withdraws from newspaper circulation audit, raising new questions about future of AMAA
News Corp Australia has abruptly withdrawn its newspapers from being audited by the Audited Media Association of Australia, dealing a near fatal blow to the future of print circulation audits in Australia.
In future News Corp will argue that advertisers should look to Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (EMMA) which was created by the newspaper industry in 2013 to promote readership numbers, rather than circulation, as the key metric.
EMMA is run by research company Ipsos under the auspices of trade body NewsMediaWorks’ sister organisation Readership Works. Based on asking survey questions, EMMA offers data including audience demographics, media consumptions, lifestyles, psychographics, and product and service usage and attitudes.
News Corp is Australia’s largest newspaper publisher with mastheads including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, the Herald-Sun in Melbourne and Courier Mail in Brisbane as well as a string of local and regional titles.
According to News Corp, the decision follows a consultation with advertisers and media agencies. It claimed: “The decision to use EMMA as the primary measurement metric follows an extensive review with more than 100 advertisers and media agencies that highlighted that the existing print circulation metric is no longer a representative measure of today’s cross-platform audiences.”
Michael Miller, News Corp Australia’s executive chairman, argued that circulation was not an indicator of how media is consumed.
Supporters of circulation audits argue that providing third party verification that publishers actually circulate the number of copies they say they do is an important safeguard for advertisers.
“Media buyers and advertisers plan media based on the audience that engages with our mastheads, not the number of papers sold,” Miller argued.
“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,” he explained.
The AMAA confirmed it had been contacted by News Corp with the news over the weekend but couldn’t comment further until its board had discussed the move.
News Corp’s decision to withdraw from the audit comes almost a year after the company’s magazine arm NewsLife Media withdrew its magazines from the audit, followed by publishers Bauer Media and Pacific Magazines. The coordinated actions effectively killed the magazine audit. In August this year, an additional four independent magazines withdrew, arguing that nobody was left.
However until today, News Corp, Fairfax Media and Seven West Media’s print mastheads had remained in the newspaper audit.
Mumbrella understands that where required by advertisers, News Corp will provide a publishers statement, audited by one of the accountancy firms.
According to the most recent half yearly figures – which covered the period from January to June 2017 – The Sunday Telegraph’s average circulation fell below 400,000 for the first time, Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun fell below 350,000 to a circulation of 349,252 and Queensland’s Sunday Mail dipped below 300,000 for the first time, with a circulation of 289,888, down 10%.
Saturday’s newspapers also witnessed declines, with Herald Sun’s circulation just above 300,000 – at 306,371 compared to a circulation of 335,232 in the corresponding period, down 9.3%.
The Daily Telegraph maintained second place among the Saturday editions, with reported a circulation of 221,996, down from 233,546, at the same time last year and The Weekend Australian fell below 220,000, with January to June figures reporting a circulation of 219,242.
While Daily Telegraph maintained second place on the among the Saturday editions, it reported a circulation of 221,996, down from 233,546, at the same time last year.
News Corp’s national newspaper also slipped slightly on the Monday to Friday figures, reporting a circulation of 94,448 compared to 99,027 at the same time the previous year.
Across News Corp’s metro newspapers, the biggest decline came from News Corp’s Northern Territory News, down 14.1% year on year to 11,279. Herald Sun remained the top selling Monday to Friday publication, however its circulation was down to 303,140, a 9.1% loss from last year’s 330,766.
The Daily Telegraph fell below 230,000 for the first time – to 221,641.
Mumbrella understands that Fairfax Media is considering its own position but has no immediate plans to withdraw. Seven West Media – which publishes The West Australian and Sunday Times in Perth – has been contacted for comment.
On the decision, Miller added: “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,” he said.
“Agencies and advertisers want transparency, accuracy and a higher frequency of data as well as accountability for investment, all of which Emma delivers.”
News Corp’s decision follows News Media Works chairman Peter Miller’s comments in September, when he described EMMA as the “oracle” for what advertisers should be doing with their ad spend.
UPDATE 10:35am Tuesday:
A spokesperson for Seven West Media has said: “WAN, publisher of The West Australian and The Sunday Times has confirmed that it will continue with the ABC and is expecting a strong December Audit figure reflecting its strength in the Western Australian market. A review of ongoing commitments to the ABC will be conducted early in 2018.”
Let’s be honest, print “numbers” are a total sham. In any other industry, or even any other channel (read: digital) they would be called out for what they are – fraud.
Take the number of copies printed, make sure it’s on one of two audit dates which the publishers know in advance and double accordingly, multiply by the “readership” ie how many times some editor says the copy get passed around, assume every single ad gets seen by every single reader, add together with the number of weeks left in ascending Jupiter and you get your final number….
Lord have mercy.
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Unfortunately, this move only helps reinforce the incorrect perception amongst many advertisers that newspapers and print are in some sort of terminal decline, which is not necessarily the case at all. Circulation is still an important factor in determining a print mediums potential to reach a certain demographic as is readership of both the print and digital versions of that medium. By understanding the trends in circulation it gives advertisers and their agencies a reliable independent evaluation tool to decide the correct allocation of advertising expenditure between the print and on line digital versions.
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You’re completely wrong because publishers have consistently shown that over 3,004 people read each copy of every printed publication.
Have you never seen someone reading GQ or The Australian? Usually with nine other people reading it over their shoulder, all cover to cover of course.
And readers per copy is increasing because people can’t get enough of printed publications, often one copy at an office like KPMG will be read by everyone in the building every day. People even come in at weekends to read the Saturday editions too.
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I’d be interested if Mumbrella could write an article delving more into readership/circulation – maybe with some quotes from EMMA/Roy Morgan/AMAA/iSentia/a few media agencies and a brand? I am still confused about the methodology – could EMMA provide info on how many people read each magazine/paper copy so we could see the engagement level (e.g. each copy of The Aus gets read by on average by 6 people etc.) – why/why not? Is it because people will then divide the readership it to get the circ info? Engagement is an interesting piece of information to know – we want to know that for influencers and as technology evolves there are an increasing number of metrics we are using to evaluate them and their following by using API info, etc. so it would be good to have further info on the data for print. I want to trust the readership figures because that’s all we’ve got now but I just need more information on them. Just a topic that I find interesting that could be considered for Mumbrella to cover more – not sure if others would also find it interesting. Much appreciated!
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Argh this is annoying I am the only person that looks at this circulation figures giving the unknown will just keep newspapers going down further and further. it is so annoying they just leave it automatically. They can’t have one more audit then leave after announced. Readership is a con by how it is measured it means nothing to the company that produces newspapers if 10 people read it the same copy nothing.
Because it doesn’t make them any richer print circulations are important so we can get a good grasp on how they are going. So readers have a Idea what’s going on.
I don’t get it how do they think it will hurt there company by producing circulation figures hardly anyone looks at them. Well all the newspapers will be gone in 10 years anyways.
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