News Corp to use EMMA data for readership

News Corp Australia will exclusively use Enhanced Media ­Metrics Australia for its readership figures.

Michael Miller, executive chairman of News Corp Australia, said EMMA “provides the most complete picture of readership”. Picture: David Geraghty

News Corp Australia will exclusively use Enhanced Media ­Metrics Australia for its readership figures following positive feedback from advertisers and media buyers.

In doing so, the company will withdraw all its newspapers from the twice-yearly national newspaper audit, reflecting the company’s repositioning as a cross-platform publisher to focus on digital publishing.

The company is set to notify trade group Audited Media ­Association of Australia it is withdrawing newspaper sales from listings with the Audit ­Bureau of Circulations and ­Circulation Audit Board.

Effective from today, the ­decision followed an extensive review with more than 100 ­advertisers and media agencies.

The move means the January to June 2017 circulation audit was the last for News Corp as the company puts more resources into cross-industry measurement standard EMMA.

New forms of delivery and digital technology have opened up more avenues between newspapers and the audience, which prompted publishers including News, Fairfax Media and Seven West Media to launch EMMA as a way to assess sales and readers under a different set of criteria.

Michael Miller, executive chairman of News Corp Australia, said the company would now only use EMMA’s total audience readership statistics, rather than just the number of copies printed and sold, as the primary ­measurement metric for all of its titles including The Australian.

“As the industry’s independent and accredited cross-­platform audience insights survey, EMMA provides the most complete picture of readership today,” Mr Miller said, ­noting that results draw from a sample of more than 40,000 Australians every month.

Following a consultation period with advertisers and media agency partners, Mr Miller said it became “clear that circulation does not represent the diversity of media consumption, and is out of step with how the industry ­operates” in the digital age.

“Media buyers and advertisers plan media based on the audience that reads a paper, not the number of papers printed.

“Total audience is the chosen metric that our advertisers and media buyers use to make their buying decisions and to evaluate performance across other main media, so it’s the natural course of action for us to simplify by using one, primary metric.”

Launched by the trade group NewsMediaWorks in 2013, EMMA provides data for more than 600 newspapers and magazines every month, using Nielsen Digital Ratings figures.

It comes as marketers and media buyers push for greater transparency in how digital media measurement at Facebook and Google works.

Broader concerns, such as controversies over measurement, traffic fraud and brand safety, have plagued Facebook and Google as well as third-party programmatic ad exchanges over the past 18 months.

Newspaper executives have sought to remind advertisers that not only have news brands avoided getting caught up in such issues, but they also offer brand-safe environments, and premium audiences, underpinned by robust, independent measurement.

Mr Miller added: “Agencies and advertisers want transparency, accuracy and a higher frequency of data as well as ­accountability for investment, all of which EMMA delivers.”

The Australian’s print audience was up 4.2 per cent year-on-year to 492,000 readers on average during the week. The Weekend Australian’s print readership gained 3.1 per cent higher to 592,000 readers, according to Enhanced Media Metrics Australia data for September.

The Australian’s total cross-platform audience rose 11.7 per cent compared to last year with 3.2 million readers.

In October, The Australian’s digital subscription sales reached 100,000 for the first time.

Overall, News Corp Australia remains the largest print and digital publisher in Australia, reaching 16.1m people aged over 14 each month.

To put this in context, that’s more people than 12.7 million Australians who voted in the same-sex marriage postal survey.