emma fails to impress Roy Morgan

The first complete year of expanded data from the newspaper publisher-backed survey, Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (emma), shows newspaper readership on mobile devices has jumped 26%, offsetting a continued decline in printed newspaper readership.

Rival pollster organisation, Roy Morgan, remains unimpressed with the emma results and says the structural changes that are happening in print are more important than headline figures.

According to Tim Martin, Media Manager, Roy Morgan, the problem with the emma report is that it lacks background.

“The issue here is that they don’t have any useful context.  Otherwise, so what?  The real action is in things like who’s reading what across which platforms,” said Martin.

“The nuances are in more detailed findings, like how Australians think, their attitudes, values, behaviours, media consumption, product purchase intentions and technology adoption.

“Our continuous survey uses a methodology that combines data collected from face-to-face interviews, self-completion questionnaires, and an online panel - not a phone survey, as Fairfax has publicly claimed - in order to find out cross-platform audience sizes,” said Martin.

The emma survey, commissioned by newspaper industry body The Newspaper Works, found mobile readership increased from 2.2 million to 2.8 million in the 12 months to January 2015, helping to fuel a 1% growth in total newspaper readership to 16.3 million readers across combined print and digital platforms.

“Printed newspapers remain a vital source of news, information and entertainment for 81% of the Australian population and are still a viable and effective medium for both readers and advertisers,” says The Newspaper Works CEO Mark Hollands.

However, a closer look at the figures reveals a continuing decline in printed newspaper readership with Fairfax and News Corp both posting significant losses.