PAMCo (the Published Audience Measurement Company) published its latest round of results yesterday (17 September), with its cross-platform datasets designed to be the publishing industry’s new audience measurement currency. It surveys audiences through a mix of 35,000 face-to-face interviews and passive digital consumption measurement.
In its latest results, which cover the period July 2017-June 2018, it reported that a high level of trust had been maintained across the total published media market, with 91% of readers saying time spent reading titles was time well spent, 70% feeling a close connection to their chosen publication and 81% trusting what they see.
PAMCo attributed the high levels of trust to the number of “established” media titles that have retained their prominence in the market.
Chief executive Simon Redican said: “Established media is the term increasingly used to describe newspapers and magazines. They are usually thought of as brands that existed before the advent of the internet – although not exclusively – and have some sort of editorial control and oversight which is absent from most social media and search.
“They are also often referred to as proven media as there is a wide body of evidence they are effective at building brands for advertisers while evidence for many of the newer entrants is scarce or suggests they are less effective in this regard.
“Although there is an underlining declining trend for print, this has only been at 2% quarter-on-quarter since we launched PAMCo. I believe the latest results show the continued high levels of reach of print and the fact that consumers can get their content in any format they choose.”
Results showed that printed titles reached 36.5m people in the year-long period – a decline of around 800,000 from June’s results which covered April 2017-March 2018. Total audience reach for the included titles, taking digital outlets into account, was 47.6m people, an increase of around 400,000.
Across the participating newspaper titles, the Sun had the greatest total monthly reach of 31.3m people across all formats, though Metro had the highest print-only reach at 10m.
For the majority of national news brands, print reach was far excelled by digital reach, primarily centred on mobile devices. The only exceptions were Metro, with a 9.8m mobile reach, and the Telegraph whose print reach of 5.1m far surpassed its 2.7m mobile reach and its 4.3m total digital reach.
Though PAMCo generally does not make quarter-on-quarter comparison or predictions for future reports, head of research Luca Vannini said that the overall reach of published media had remained “stable and very high” at around 90% of the population over 15 years old, with digital alone up by 5%.
