EMMA Tells Us What We’re Reading

Last week saw the launch of EMMA (Enhanced Media Metrics Australia) into the Australian marketplace. Developed by Ipsos MediaCT, a global audience measurement company, for The Readership Works, EMMA runs a survey of 54,000 a people, across every day of the week, and allows for a greater breakdown of readership, such as sections of newspapers as opposed to the overall publication.

Of course the biggest roadblock for EMMA is the incumbent measurement system in place with Roy Morgan.

From the first round of data released by EMMA, big differences have emerged in readership data than those released by Roy Morgan. For example, EMMA data suggests Roy Morgan figures have been seriously under-valuing the readership of most Australian newspapers, with some 1.17 million people reading The Daily Telegraph compared to 759,000 via Roy Morgan.

The flipside of that, of course, is that EMMA is over-valuing compared to Roy Morgan, but it’s impossible to tell which is more accurate. Publishing industry associations have come out in support of EMMA, which is unsurprising given it was an industry-backed endeavour (and is giving higher numbers).

Some more EMMA figures released for newspapers –

• Sydney Morning Herald: 45% higher than Roy Morgan (814,000 vs. 562,000)
• The Australian: 47% higher than Roy Morgan (540,000 vs. 367,000)
• Australian Financial Review: 32% higher than Roy Morgan (312,000 vs. 236,000)

Magazines have also garnered a boost from EMMA, with The Australian Women’s Weekly going from 1.6m to 2.3m.

While these figures reflect fantastically for Print media in Australia, many media companies are still testing the system.

What it means for us: Aegis Media’s current stance is that Roy Morgan is still the system to be relied upon until the new data has been tried and tested as a more correct reporting matrix. That being said, it will be interesting to watch the quarterly reports (and soon monthly reports) unfold from EMMA, and to chart the differences in audience between publications. It could be in the future we settle on a middle ground between the two measurement systems, as Roy Morgan has just come to market with a new crop of changes to Asteroid, including a greater granularity of data and the ability to create multi-year trends. Keep your eyes open for new information over the next few months.