Papers Take A New Pass On Pass-Along, Data Reveals Total Readership

In an effort to provide better usage data for advertisers, the Newspaper Association of America Monday launched a new initiative to show advertisers that newspapers' reach exceeds the number of papers they sell.

The semi-annual study, called the Newspaper Audience Database (NADbase), counts the average number of people who read the 100 largest newspapers in the country on a given weekday. Rather than providing circulation data--the usual currency by which newspaper advertising is bought and sold--the NAA study also incorporates "pass-along" data, which refers to the number of people projected to read each copy, as well as monthly Web publication usage.

The addition of projected reach makes for dramatically higher numbers than the circulation data provided by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. For example, the NAA study says that USA Today--the nation's largest newspaper publication, with an average weekday circulation of 2.3 million, according to ABC--actually reaches 7.1 million people per day when you factor in the number of readers per household, or the number of people who pick up leftover newspapers on a train.

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NAA Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer John Kimball said the NADbase study has been designed "to make the buying process easier" for ad agencies, which had been asking for more comprehensive audience data from newspaper publishers. "This [study] just put newspapers on an even footing with other media," he added--referring to how other media such as TV and radio have been measured by total audience, while print has always been measured by the number of units sold. Kimball said that circulation numbers alone are not an adequate measure of overall consumer consumption.

Kimball also suggested that the study, which publishes print readership alongside newspaper Web site usage for the first time, could help those advertisers who are looking to buy online and print as a package.

Miles Groves, a media economist for MG Strategic Research, agreed. He said that putting Web and print data together will facilitate package deals between local advertisers and smaller papers, but "national advertisers are a different environment," because large ad shops have a harder time mixing media plans. From a publishing perspective, Groves said, "it's critical to tie online and offline info together," to help boost sales and force change.

For advertisers, news of broader reach could boost their confidence in newspapers--which have, of late, been making headlines for steadily declining circulation rates and inflation scandals; just last year, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Dallas Morning News, and Newsday were found guilty of inflating circulation.

Aside from individual newspaper consumption figures, Monday's study also reported that 77 percent of adults--or 115 million people--in the top 50 designated market areas read newspapers each week. On the Web, nearly one-third of Internet users visited newspaper sites in July--more than 43 million people.

The first NADbase primarily uses survey data collected by Scarborough Research from February 2004 to March 2005; online data is supplied by Nielsen//NetRatings data collected during July 2005.

The next NADbase will be published next spring, and is expected to include added readership numbers for papers--supplemental and offshoot publications, according to an NAA spokesperson.

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