Premium publisher sites are being 'under-represented” in programmatic media buys, says News Media Works CEO Peter Miller.
According to the latest figures from News Media Works, total news media ad revenue was $2.1 billion for the 12 months to 30 June. The data includes sales made directly with publishers and via agencies, using SMI data.
Within that total spend, premium news media websites attracted less than 11% of the total programmatic ad market’s revenue in the latest quarter despite reaching 70%, or 13 million Australians over 14 each month. Miller says this shows advertisers are choosing “quantity over quality” and are not considering brand safety.
“Branding has never simply been a numbers game. Too often, the impression you buy via third party ad networks is not the impression you leave your customer. The reputational risk that automated placement of ads on third party networks and alongside user-generated content needs to be addressed. Unlike premium news brands, these sites offer little or no editorial standards or quality control,” says Miller.
“We need to push the reset button on perceptions of news media and ask advertisers and their advisors take a fresh and objective look at the sector. News media continues to deliver large, highly engaged audiences who trust their preferred news source. Digital readership continues to grow and in a number of cases print readership has also bucked the trend.”
SMI managing director, Jane Schulze, added that it was surprising not to see any significant shift in spending patterns in light of the concerns around brand safety in digital.
Advertising revenue for the news media sector fell 10.9% over the past year. Despite the decline it is the third largest media sector in terms of ad revenue. Print ad revenue fell 14.5% to $1.82bn, while digital grew 7.5% to $463 million.
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