The Publishers Audience Measurement Company (PAMCo) released its fourth round of results today (17 December), completing its first full year as the new currency for audience engagement – having replaced the National Readership Survey (NRS) in 2018.
In the results – which cover the period October 2017-September 2018 – print media across newsbrands and magazines declined slightly from last quarter's 36.5m result, but continues to have the highest reach among platforms at 35.7m people, just above mobile phones, which reached 33.7m. Tablets and desktop computers continued to bring up the rear with reaches of 11.5m and 21.7m respectively.
According to chief executive Simon Redican, PAMCo is now fully established as the new industry currency. His ambition for the system’s second year is to further encourage its users to consider the data it provides in new, multi-platform ways.
“What we have seen so far is people utilising the data similarly to how they would use the NRS, in order to plan print advertising campaigns,” he said. “The opportunity here is to use PAMCo data to look collectively at reach across all platforms.
“Already we are seeing some people using it in a more modern way and the big push is to get more people using it and get the data into as many planning systems as possible. We will continue to improve our methodology by looking at the possibility of Skype interviews and working closer with agencies and publishers.
“Our hope is that people will make the most of it as a multi-platform currency, understanding that print remains a significant platform and that a campaign run on print would be just as effective in digital – and vice versa.”
PAMCo results are currently measured using the latest passive measurement techniques, together with 35,000 high-quality face-to-face interviews, giving a single, de-duplicated view of publishers’ audiences across all content platforms.
Across newspaper brands, The Sun continues to have the highest overall reach at 29.4m people, closely followed by The Mail at 26.7m, The Guardian at 23.4m and The Telegraph at 22.5m. However, the brand with the largest print reach by far was Metro with a reach of 9.7m people through its printed format alone.
