Fairfax Media Metro Division has moved to buck negative sentiment about declining circulation with an audience report that shows increases in online, mobile and tablet audiences.
The launch of the report coincides with the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) results out today, that show declines for Fairfax print publications, including an 11.9% drop for The Sydney Morning Herald.
According to Fairfax, the audience report will provide a more holistic view of audiences for its titles, combining The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun-Herald, and smh.com.au into one block, and The Age, Sunday Age and theage.com.au as another block.
The report shows the average unique monthly web audience for The Sydney Morning Herald block increasing from 2,459,000 in 2010 to 2,835,000 in 2011, while mobile sites saw average daily unique browers increase 126.3%, and tablet downloads increased from nothing in 2010 to 224,279 in 2011.
For The Age block, average monthly unique browsers increased from 1,688,667 in 2010 to 1,706,000 in 2011, while mobile sites saw average daily unique browsers increase 84.7% and tablet downloads increased from nothing in 2010 to 191,268 in 2011.
The report will be released as a quarterly report four times a year and 10 times as a monthly.
Fairfax Metro Media CEO Jack Matthews said: “This is a very significant development in the way we present information about Fairfax Metro audiences to the market.
“We will no longer gauge our success or measure ourselves on a single-dimension or metric, but to look at how audiences are engaging with our brands across all platforms and time-frames.
Reporting on all platforms his generally split between multiple sources including the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Roy Morgan Research, Nielsen Online Ratings and Nielsen Market Intelligence, often published at different times.
The audience report comprises unique audience, time on site per person per month, average monthly streams, M-site average monthly views, app downloads and tablet downloads, total masthead sales (print and digital) and new readership.
More metrics are expected to be introduced into future editions over time.
Matthews said: “In a fragmenting media environment, audiences demand news, information and entertainment content on whatever device at whatever time they please.
“Fairfax understands those audience demands, so our strategy is to deliver to those needs. The new Metro Media Audience Report is a key development in the way we measure our audiences against our strategy.”
Follow @AdNews on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.
Have something to say? Send us your comments using the form below or contact the writer at erinsmth@yaffa.com.au
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.