TODAY’S PAPERS: Secrecy over readership plans; Is Mitchells on the Vodafone list?; Freeview confusion
It’s Monday, so it’s the biggest day of the week for media and marketing in the metro papers.
The Australian Financial Review:
The murkiness of research company Roy Morgan’s plans on how it will measure newspaper readership in the future is tackled by Neil Shoebridge in his column today. He points out that it is 17 months since trade body The Newspaper Works hired research Ian Muir to review the system, saying that “the newspaper industry has opted for secrecy”. He reports that the state of affairs is frustrating media agencies who hear rumours that there may be no changes until 2011.
Vodafone’s review of its media account – featuring incumbent Ikon, PHD and Universal McCann – may be on hold because of the proposed merger with 3, saysthe paper. When the link-up was first announced, Mumbrella speculated that Mitchell Communication Group might try to get on the list through its links with 3-owner Hutchinson, despite the fact that it also has connections with rival brand Optus. But at the time Vodafone claimed it was “business as usual” for the pitch.
The Freeview is deliberately misleading as well as confusing. The next major problem will be when all those people who already have digital receivers cannot access the Freeview EPG because their device is not considered compatible with the service. Freeview is planning to sell branded digital recievers and may use its commercial decisions to exclude owners of existing devices from accessing the EPG. It is possible that technically compatible devices will be denied access to the EPG for commercial or political reasons. I watch free to air tv via an Elgato EyeTV and my MacBook Pro. I suspect such devices will be denied access to the EPG.
For more on the manipulative and deceptive way Freeview witll restrict access to the EPG, consider this: “Freeview-branded set top boxes will be able to receive the Freeview Electronic Program Guide which displays all programming information in one format.”
In effect: “Only their “approved” hardware will be able to display the new all-channels EPG, and of course that hardware will be crippled as that is the stated intention of Free TV Australia. The PVR you spent close to a grand on, no, sorry, no EPG for you. That $4000 TV? Sorry, no EPG for you.”
Regarding the media measurement issues raised by Mark Day and Steve Ahern I would like to pass some informed comment.
First Steve, the radio ratings process has been changed to alleviate that situation. Previously ONE person in a household was ‘recruited’ and diaries were left for ALL members of the household. This lead in some instances to issues with completion and compliance – such as those you mention. The person who gave permission generally did the best job. Mind you, all the raw data is inspected and people who had ‘outlier’ listening were excluded from the final sample – of course someone who worked at a radio station would never fill in just their own station! This does not say that there are not issues with manually recording radio listening – but we are on a better track. Electronic methods are being looked at.
A side effect of changing to ‘specific person’ (based on “who had the last birthday to keep it random”) is that with the average home having 2,7 people, we now have to knock on almost triple the number of doors to get the sample. The fact that this change happened in one of the hottest summers on record meant that it was simply not safe to have fieldworkers knocking on doors in 46 degree heat! The fact that the data hadn’t been processed at that stage should lay rest to Mark Day’s scuttle-butt theorising.
Finally regarding, circulation and readership HAVING to head in the same direction, this is simply NOT true. In hard times we see less people paying the cover price and passing on their copy more (as people have less cash for entertainment). That is, the “readers per copy” (RPC) increases as the circulation (sales) decline – which results in more readers but less copies sold. The inverse tends to apply in the good times when people say “I like that title I borrowed and will buy my own”. Mind you, circulation down 2.5% and readership up 23% sure boggles my mind! Be aware that is comparing a quarterly circulation to an annual readership – so that MAY account for some of the variation … but sheesh !
Ahhhh, my Mumbrella hit for the day, nothing feels better.
Thanks Tim, it’s so damn easy to come up to speed by quickly flicking through your blog.