Fairfax Media pulls out of Nielsen’s digital content ratings

Friday funny – Fairfax’s digital innovation is far outpacing standard audience measurement metrics

Another media dinosaur coming up with their own metrics because they do so poorly in industry-standard measurement.

Maybe it’s time to stop shooting the messenger and instead deliver something that people might want to read.

@ Passer By: what does that comment even mean?

Absolute muppets… beggars belief.

12 months of constant changes and now pulling out of Nielsen – giving agencies no reason to spend media dollars with them. Going elsewhere!

Management myopia writ large.

Hey .. I know. Let’s go back and start talking about traffic. We can even have it independently audited, just like we do with the newspapers. What’s that? We stopped auditing them? Oops.

Nah, it won’t affect EMMA because there will soon be no Fairfax mastheads left.

This current mob makes Warwick look like a genius.

They would be the first to criticise FB for reporting their own numbers. Interesting move in the year of trust and transparency.

try reading the article

Wouldn’t have anything to do with fact that Fairfax mastheads have been sliding in these rankings for some time …? (Don’t like the numbers? One way to fix that – just pull out so no-one can actually see them!)

The world of newspapers always brings a smile to my face 🙂

Means that it’s quite amusing that they believe their digital innovation is out pacing audience measurement.

There is a lack of substantial evidence in market to suggest Fairfax are performing well ahead of other competitors or even on par

A number of publishers are ready to follow suit. Nielsen is collapsing because their methodology and numbers are inaccurate. Anyone actually trading on Nielsen numbers are the true muppets!

I have. It’s a nonsense comment.

Nielsen effectively serve the top end of town agency dinosaurs who wouldn’t know a SDK from a STD. I applaud Fairfax for taking this bold decision which will hopefully hasten Nielsens inclusion of Google AMP.

They didn’t like the (plummeting) newspaper circ numbers so they pulled out of that the ABCs. Now, same deal with digital – supposedly their grown engine

Neilsen’s only job is measurement and they aren’t measuring AMP and HTTPS views. WTF? I think you’ve got the wrong suspect in terms of who is screwing this up or not innovating fast enough.

Every single one of these comments shows a complete lack of understanding of the limitations of DCR. Why would anyone in their right mind use a metric that massively under estimates the real audience?

100% correct

I dont work for or with Fairfax. Im also a Millennial. However, I am disappointed to see the industry take pleasure in the regression of a proper, journalistic Australian publisher. If businesses like theirs do go away, you’re news will be limited to whatever one of the Kardashian’s last said or wore.

Feels like UK leaving the EU. Another Brexit. Should be fine.

Brave move by Fairfax. Nielson need to move with the times and develop better methodology. Their panel-based system is wildly inaccurate or unavailable for any media brand bar the biggest news publishers.
Not having AMP pages measurable for digital content is also inexcusable.

I think the dinosaur in this case is Nielsen not the publisher.
Nielsen has the monopoly on the aussie market and is sub par on other measurement tools on the other side of the world.

How long until the other big issues with DCR come out?

Let’s see Nielsen try and explain iOS UA inflation and Facebook video crediting now this is public.

Good on you Fairfax for exposing the industry’s dirty secret … and coping the heat on behalf of everyone. You’ll be rewarded in the long term for not putting Nielsen first.

Why should a publisher be feel compelled to be part of publisher self interested, closed shop consortium that positions itself as the only reliable measure of web site visitation?

It shouldn’t.

Good on Fairfax for sticking it to them.

Is DCR perfect? No. Do publishers and the IAB have a responsibility to contribute to the accuracy of DCR? Yes. You don’t do that by walking out of the consultation process and pronounce ANOTHER customised audience metric incompatible with an industry standard. The Fairfax sales team must now re-educate and convince advertisers (like myself) that their proprietary numbers are the source of truth. This adds further friction to an already difficult sales process. As a representative of a major travel advertiser with both Fairfax and News Corp I am perplexed by this decision. In re-cutting budgets, I will take this latest development into account.

Hi Gezza.

I was interested in your comment “massively under estimates the real audience”.

Could you please hit me up on LinkedIn and provide me with some examples and data so that I can look into it.

#1 – not one piece of informed or constructive criticism above on DCR. Mind you when it is cowardly anonymous commentors it should be entirely disregarded. ‘Needs a better methodology’ easily translates to ‘I don’t know how it works or how to use it but I don’t like it. Also my influencer network reaches 2 million views a year. Duplication? What’s that?’ Just once I’d like to see a DCR critic discuss the statistical pros/cons with its hybrid sample projection vs the sampling integrity of online only measurement solutions. Just once.

#2 – pulling out of industry standards rarely works (commercially) in favour of the member media company departing. Standards are designed to create trust with media buyers and investors. If you’re growing a new segment like search or social or ambient media – you have a chance. If you are a declining legacy media conglomerate.. it only hastens a deserving irrelevance.

In January, the Sydney Morning Herald digital masthead (smh.com.au) reached 3.9 million people (Nielsen DRM – reported by Mumbrella).

Sydney’s population is 5 million people (census).

If they’re reaching almost 80% of the human population in their market in a month, it’s not ‘massively under estimated’.

So you buy media based on Nielsen because it’s an ”industry standard” and easy? Accuracy should probably be a consideration. Just saying .::

And that’s without considering effectiveness … which makes all of this irrelevant!

I’m surprised it took publishers this long. No brainer to exit Nielsen.

Good try fairfax at trying to look disruptive – at least DRM gives me data about publishers audiences on their own properties – fairfax has been going in the opposite direction than most publishers although claiming #1 in the Mumbrella marketing piece last week.

I guess from all this discussion people do still care about ratings.

Yeah, you are spot on. Nielsen does not measure HTTPs and AMP in DRM. This is web technology which was implemented overseas years ago and Nielsen have yet to adapt

Ummm, last time I checked, you can go to the SMH site even if you are outside of Sydney.

The 3.9 million is a National Reach you wally

Thanks for showing your sublime ignorance, @ Three monkeys. Fairfax is still participating in the AMAA Circulation Audit. It was News Corp that pulled out.

No, you shouldn’t buy media JUST on Nielsen because it is an industry standard; but it certainly helps as a point of comparison. The accuracy of that measurement, the effectiveness of the publisher, tangible metrics (e.g. return on ad spend) and campaign objectives all get taken into account…
However what does not help is a publisher moving away from that standard measurement (flaws and all) and claiming that they can do it better.
Nielsen DCR has its’ flaws; not releasing AMP measurement sooner (when they have had the capability to, and have already released in other markets) is one of them.
However, Fairfax’s complaints are not unique to them as a publisher, they are industry-wide (well, as far as any publishers on HTTPs and AMP optimised) and as one of Australia’s largest publishers in the digital space; isn’t it incumbent on them to work with the likes of the IAB and Nielsen to demand and deliver better outcomes; not run in the opposite direction.

I know this troll.

My point is if a city masthead is more focused on quantifying it’s secondary audience than satisfying its primary one, the product is probably a much bigger issue.

Nielsens is an tired and flawed measurement process. With the mega $ being spent in this industry I would think the big brands and advertisers deserve accuracy and transparency.
I think Fairfax will be the start of a long awaited shakeup.

And your evidence for that claim would be …?

It isn’t perfect by any means (none are) but it is the best currently available.

“Im also a Millennial.”
By their punctuation ye shall know them.