• Adweek, Monday, December 19, 2011 2:58 PM

Magazine publishers are questioning the accuracy of the fall MRI report, which shows significant -- many double-digit -- audience declines from last year in 70% of the magazines surveyed.

Lucia Moses presents the publishers' complaints,  along with MRI's statement that it stands behind its research.

Some publishers say, for example, that their digital readership is underrepresented in the survey. And then there's the defensive posture taken by Howard Mittman, the publisher of Wired, whose audience allegedly declined by 22%: “Frankly, I believe any drops, or increases, are less a symbol of a magazine’s audience than they are a shining example of deficiencies in the research collection process itself. Do you really think a Wired reader is going to spend that amount of time completing a written and online survey? If so, they're not likely the affluent, intellectual readers we target anyway.”

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