I’d like to challenge a commonly-held perception.
A
perception which has been fuelled by doom merchants and nay-sayers in the wider
media landscape for some time now. There is a belief that local news
brands are in decline. That long-term circulation trends signal a terminal
reduction in local audiences.
The opposite is, in fact, true.
Local news brands are reaching more people than ever
before. With the explosion of digital channels, these well-established,
trusted, and yes, loved local media brands are reaping the benefits of a period
of transition and evolution undertaken by the whole local news brand
industry. Consumption habits have undoubtedly changed, and as a result
fewer people get their news from printed products. However, what hasn’t
changed is the huge appetite for quality local content – and this is what our
titles produce day in and day out, via any platform our audience demands.
This change in consumption habits is clearly demonstrated by
the impressive ongoing growth in our total audience reach, driven by digital
consumption of our content, across multiple devices. Newsquest’s total
digital network has seen audience growth of 41.9% year on year, and currently
stands at 12.9 million monthly
unique users, with further growth expected when the next reporting period comes
around. When combined with around 10 million weekly newspaper readers,
the total reach opportunities for brands looking to engage with local media
consumers become considerable. The digital growth more than compensates
for the print audience re-alignment.
With similar online growth being demonstrated by all other
major local publishers, it would seem that our industry is crying out for a
new, comprehensive and uniform metric to measure audiences across print and
digital, on all devices.
The news that our national news brand colleagues, via their
industry body Newsworks, have
served statutory 18-month notice on the NRS, and is
to appoint a strategy consultant as the next step to establishing a
contemporary audience measurement system, reinforces my firmly held
belief.
We need a modern, accurate, and
trusted audience measurement metric, which truly tells the real story about
local media news brands, and the impressive scale of their influence. To
give credit where it’s due; the Locally Connected
initiative, led by the Newspaper Society and JICREG, sought to pioneer an
integrated approach to audience measurement as far back as 2009. The
collaborative approach to developing that currency, which included input from
publishers, media agencies, and ABCe was commendable, but the currency itself
probably hasn’t gained the traction and acceptance that was hoped for at the
outset. However, I’m sure that lessons can be learned as JICREG, under
the stewardship of Keith Donaldson, seeks to take the integrated audience
measurement issue significantly forward.
True, the numbers only tell part
of the story.
Beyond the impressive reach figures we can demonstrate
genuine insight into our audience, which shows the unique pillars of behaviour
that makes local news brand consumers a breed apart, and a breed very much
worth engaging properly, if a national brand is serious about local cut-through
and engagement.
But from a national sales
perspective, the localness must go hand in hand with measurable national
scale. At NMS, we have sought to be first-movers on this, by instigating
a Total Audience Reach Trading policy. Yes, that’s TART. We are
strongly of the belief that to achieve maximum reach and impact, brands and
agencies need to utilise the full range of our available channels and devices –
because local news brand consumers are actively engaging with our content when
and how they choose. Our trading policy should reflect this, and that is
why all of our propositions incorporate print and digital executions as
standard, tailored by device. With 57% of our digital audience accessing
content via mobile or tablet, it just makes sense, doesn’t it?
To support our efforts with
TART, but more fundamentally, to give agencies and advertisers confidence that
our industry can continue to provide measurable growth, we need to explore all
available routes to a viable integrated currency.
This is the next great
challenge our industry
must deliver upon, and soon.
Managing Director
Newsquest Media Sales
Find out more about Newsquest Media Sales and contact our team.
