Hooray! From tomorrow newspaper publishers in the UK will be able to report both their print circulations and online unique users in one monthly report. This is a significant and welcome move by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
It will reveal that all-important measure known as "the reach" achieved by publications by detailing both month-on-month and year-on-year figures for on-line and newsprint.
The new "multi-platform monthly report" will also break out figures by geographical region; the UK, Republic of Ireland and other countries.
The initiative follows requests from advertisers, agencies and media owners because it will undoubtedly introduce greater transparency. It's long overdue, but I know that ABC has been working as hard as possible to bring it about. Some media companies dragged their heels, I'm afraid.
But that's history. Martyn Gates, ABC's director of newspapers, is rightly proud of their achievement. He said: "The new single report displays print and online audience data together, enabling media owners, buyers and advertisers to get a better view of a media brand's cross-platform reach.
"The new report format will help standardise monthly reporting of online audience data, already commonplace with print."
Once established, the new multi-platform reporting will also be available to magazine publishers. A number of titles have already started publishing online figures in addition to their print circulations. (Source: mad.co.uk)
