Online audience to be included in ABC figures

I have just read an interesting post from Roy Gleenslade reporting that online unique users and circulation figures will now be added together in a new report format for the first time – this is a big step forward.

He reports: “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.”

I think this is interesting and it prompted a debate here at Wolfstar as to whether subscribers to the RSS feed, will or should be included too rather than just unique users and visits. A website can have a low number of visits one month but still have a huge number of subscribers who are all reading every post or article.

It is well documented that national and local newspaper circulation figures have been affected by the emergence of new media. On a local level here in Leeds, several of the Yorkshire Post’s business team have moved to a new venture called www.thebusinessdesk.com which is doing really well. Check out Seb’s post on it for more details. 

Richard Bailey is attending/hosting an event tonight entitled “Print is Dead”. However, I wonder if all these figures were added together in a detailed report if the title of the event would be altered to “Print is moving”.

Cross posted: Norton’s Notes

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