As newspaper readership continues its decline, News Limited has once again cast doubts on Roy Morgan's methodology and insisted that the long awaited model from The Readership Works will launch "this financial year".
According to the latest print readership figures from Roy Morgan, News Limited's The Australian increased by 0.7% year on year to 405,000, while The Weekend Australian improved its figures by 2.1%, increasing to 781,000.
In contrast, 41 out of 53 papers saw readership declines. Fairfax's weekday edition of The Australian Financial Review fell 1.3% and the weekend edition declined 5.2%.
Roy Morgan Readership in year to December 2012.
Meanwhile, News Limited has once again questioned the accuracy of Roy Morgan's readership methodology. The publisher has stated that the new measurement system, developed by Ipsos for The Newspaper Works' readership spin-off The Readership Works, will be released “this financial year”.
The Readership Works' system has been in development for some years.
However, News Limited has now placed a loose launch date on the metric, suggesting the new system will roll out before July 2013. News Limited was one of the key media companies behind the creation of The Readership Works, and has questioned Roy Morgan's figures for several years.
News Limited chief executive Kim Williams said: “This financial year The Readership Works will launch our sector’s new readership measurement system. We are excited about the new methodology as it will provide advertisers a much more accurate picture of media consumption across all platforms - print, online, smart phones and tablets.
“We have had concerns for a number of years about the incumbent Roy Morgan readership methodology as we believe it is built on a skewed sample and a paper questionnaire that relies on readers recalling what they read up to six days earlier.”
In response, a spokesperson for Roy Morgan said: “Not too much has been entered into the market about the Readership Works. All we can do is work closely with our clients.”
In Roy Morgan's readership figures for the year to December 2012, just 12 newspapers saw readership increases across Australia in the year to December 2012, compared with 41 decreases. However, the figure is significantly better than the results for the year to September 2012, where there were six increases and 48 declines.
The largest decreases in the 12 months to December 2012 were seen by Fairfax's Sun-Herald, which declined 18.4%, and Tasmania's Sunday Examiner, which fell 21.1%.
The largest increase was seen by the Gold Coast Bulletin, posting a 10.1% jump.
A look at Roy Morgan's new 'masthead readership' figures, which combine print and online readership, did not indicate growth either.
While year-on-year comparisons are not yet available due to the metric's recent introduction, combined readership numbers for the year to June 2012 can be compared with the year to December 2012.
Of the 11 titles reported in these masthead figures, only two saw period-on-period growth: Fairfax's Australian Financial Review and The Age.
Finally, newspaper inserted magazines saw readership increase across six titles, and decrease across 15 titles.
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