No Better Time For Publishers To Parade Their Wares
With the consumption of media increasingly shifting to new platforms, Claudine Collins, managing partner and head of press at MediaCom, examines how initiatives like the ABC’s Group Product Report are an important step in media measurement…
Our consumption of media is most definitely on the rise. Mobile technology has made it possible to download our favourite radio shows, watch TV clips and go online pretty much anywhere in the UK. As technology advances, advertisers jump on board and costs continue to fall, these trends are certain to continue.
Coupled with a rise in on-demand media consumption, there has also been a proliferation of media platforms. Friends Reunited (now owned by ITV) led the trend of online community websites. This was followed by MySpace (now owned by News International), and is joined, if not surpassed by the popularity of Facebook (yet to be bought) along with others. The past few months have also seen the launch of Monkey and Jellyfish, online magazines from Dennis and NatMags respectively.
In addition, building on the success of the Metro, there have been high profile entrants into the freesheet market, notably thelondonpaper and the London Lite, but also the warmly welcomed Sport, the men’s weekly distributed in the capital, and regional freesheets such as the MEN Lite. Furthermore most of the quality national newspaper titles are podcasting something or audio/visual streaming something else.
There are now more ways for media owners to engage consumers than ever before and, as a matter of necessity, it has become essential to continue to explore and pioneer these new channels.
The patronage of some newspaper websites has gone from strength to strength in recent years, as they successfully harness a migration of readers online. The Guardian recently posted 15,703,012 unique users, up from 10,131,089 just two years ago, according to ABC ELECTRONIC data. The Telegraph‘s website similarly reported 7,392,803 unique users, in the same period, up from 3,842,372 in March 2005.
These are colossal rises and mark real triumphs by publishers to retain and gain new readers, extending the brand cross-platform. Whilst the drop in classified advertising has hit revenues, the sound performance of online properties must be reassuring, whilst presenting challenges themselves.
ABC, the independent, industry-owned regulator recently launched the Group Product Report, which allows media owners to display their figures for newspapers, magazines, websites and events alongside each other.
Guardian News and Media, News Group, Times Group, Scottish Daily Record and the Telegraph Group have been the first to seize this opportunity to display their brand’s collective offering. Whilst you can’t simply add all the figures together the report should become an important trading tool for media owners.
Undoubtedly, from the publisher’s perspective, newspapers are valued more than their websites at the moment as an advertising medium. However, this is changing. With more readers going online, cross-platform audience figures will continue to rise in importance. This is creating an onus on publishers to promote their brand’s offering, size and scale, and a combined report is just a starting point.
Ultimately developments will probably take us to a single, cross-media circulation figure, however this some way off and won’t be easy to achieve. Even then, it is not exactly clear if this is what ad buyers would want.
What is for certain is that many of the established publishers have done a great job in exploiting online opportunities and consolidating their position in the digital era, although there are notable exceptions here. However this is a fast-moving environment and those doing well will need to continue to progress in order to fend off challenges from spirited upstarts.
The maturity of the web has brought greater parity with its print equivalent, and with this has come the increasing demand to see cross-media audience figures as standard. There has never been a better time for publishers to parade their wares, until now.
The next in MediaTel Group’s series of forward-facing seminars will look at the ‘Future of National Newspapers’, with panellists discussing some of the above mentioned topics. The session will be held in London on 4 July. For more information and to book, click here.