Readership tender shortlist

The Newspaper Works today announced the three leading multinational research companies that have been shortlisted to formally tender for a new Australian newspaper and magazine readership system. They are:

• GfK:Mediamark Research & Intelligence (GfK:MRI) – which conducts print research in 18 countries, including the national print media research study in the US; 
• Ipsos MediaCT – which has print readership operations in 34 countries, including the UK, France and Australia, and has built more than 20 readership measurement systems around the world in the past 10 years.
• TNS Australia – which is part of Kantar Media, and conducts industry readership projects in 23 countries, including Canada.

“All three shortlisted companies have a growing presence in Australia backed by strong credentials, proven expertise and vast resources across their major international research networks. Combined, they conduct readership research in more than 70 countries,” The Newspaper Works CEO Tony Hale said.

“These shortlisted groups are three of the leading print audience measurement companies in the world. They were chosen from a long-list of eight firms after an intensive review process. “As a result, we are very confident that the firm that wins the tender will develop a new readership metric of the highest quality for Australia providing world-class, transparent and accurate readership results that reflect how consumers engage with newspapers.

“The international experience of the shortlisted firms means the new system for Australia will include the best emerging methodologies, the integration of print and online readership, topic involvement information, more frequent release of data and the ability to host the data on competitive analytical software platforms” Mr Hale said.

Mr Hale said an additional benefit of the tender process was the way in which the Media Federation of Australia (MFA) and the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) had collaboratively supported the decision to reform readership measurement in Australia.

The Chairman of the MFA Gary Hardwick said: “Our intention is to evolve the newspaper readership metric, and given the quality of the shortlisted tender companies, the MFA will remain in the tender process.”

The Newspaper Works announced an open tender for newspaper readership in June this year with the objective of providing advertisers and media agencies with a significantly improved metric to provide sophisticated audience data that reflects how readers actually engage with newspaper content and act in response to advertising.

The shortlisted companies will be issued a formal Request For Tender within the next month and final submissions will be due at the end of March, 2010. The readership tender has the support of The Newspaper Works board members and shareholders News Limited, West Australian Newspapers and APN News & Media.

Fairfax Media has advised the board of The Newspaper Works that it has decided not to participate in the remaining stages of the readership tender.

Fairfax Media will remain a member of The Newspaper Works.

The incumbent provider of readership research in Australia, Roy Morgan Research, declined to participate in the tender.