PANPA drop circulation categories in favour of emma audience data
The Newspaper Works will drop circulation categories from its PANPA awards to emphasise audience and readership monitored by its emma data next year.
Mark Hollands, CEO of The Newspaper Works, the industry body that runs the Pacific Area Newspaper Association (PANPA) annual awards, felt strongly they should reflect the changing nature of the business and the Enhanced Media Metrics Australia, or emma, is more able to do that.
Hollands said circulation figures no longer made sense to differentiate the categories, as newspapers move from one category to another when print circulations decline, which sees local newspapers with large circulations, such as the Manly Daily, pitted against established metro titles. The revamped awards will also include new categories to reflect digital developments.
Hollands said: “The whole thing is starting to look a little bit antiquated as the industry changes and this emma view of life is probably a better fit now. Circulation is just not the language now and its not really the focus of the businesses.
“It’s all about growing your audience and the synergies between print and digital, so we’re only reflecting what the industry is dealing with too.”
Hollands
Next year newspapers will be grouped according to the emma criteria of national metro, regional, small regional and community newspapers, rather than the current four circulation categories of up to 10,000, 10,000-25,000, 25,000-90,000, and 90,000+.
International entries from New Zealand and Asian countries will be slotted into the emma categories, Hollands said.
“We’ve got to realign the categories and the segmentation of these awards to reflect the business, and the business has changed so much in two or three years, so it’s crazy to pretend the awards should reflect a business model that kind of died about two and a half years ago,” he told Mumbrella.
There will also be fewer awards on the night as the marketing categories will move from the PANPAs to the Newspaper Works’ Ad Awards, usually held the night before. This will reduce the number of PANPA awards from over 50 to less than 30, Hollands said.
The Newspaper of the Year award will remain the top prize at the PANPA awards planned for August 21 at The Ivy in Sydney following the Newspaper Works’ annual conference.
It is sad that at the very time that it became obvious that news media sustainability is based on paid sales that the industry metric shifts to estimated readership. Have they not noticed Google or Facebook yet?
Someone needs to take Australian news media leadership on a cruise – to the Bermuda Triangle.
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If circulation of newspapers is no longer relevant, then why is newspaper of the year still the top prize?
Surely this would need to change with the times as well to news brand or masthead of the year?
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