Tag Archives: Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic

Brand Republic: FT withdraws from ABCe audits for web traffic

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In the same month that it launched its own metric for measuring readers across print, online and other media, the Financial Times has officially withdrawn from the monthly audit of UK newspapers’ web traffic conducted by the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe). It’s been some time since the FT website’s figures were included in the monthly stats – listed as N/A below a print circulation figure in the monthly multi-platform reports issued by the auditor.

Says a spokesperson:

The FT no longer participates in ABCes as volume traffic measures have become less relevant to our advertisers and clients. We do not intend to compete on volume, rather the quality of our registered and subscriber readership.

Full story at this link…

Regional online traffic compared; Johnston Press comes out top

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I’ve had a little play with today’s Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic’s (ABCe) six-monthly multi-platform report for July – December 2009 and produced a few graphs.

Johnston Press was top of the traffic charts with 384,016 daily unique browsers – partly thanks to the Scotsman which attracted 86,694 daily browsers on average over the past six months. In second place for daily unique browsers (which ABCe now prioritises over monthly statistics as a better measure of site popularity) came Newsquest with 320,975 browsers. Closely behind, Trinity Mirror, which recorded 287,130. Of the bigger groups, it was Northcliffe in fourth position with 256,123. GMG saw the biggest drop-off overall when period-on-period monthly unique browser figures were compared: -17.8 per cent.

For the next multiplatform report, it could be all change: GMG regional titles will be part of Trinity Mirror, following the sale agreement earlier this month; and the effect of Johnston Press’ pay walls, launched in November may well have kicked in. They seem to have had a limited effect on this period’s statistics, but it’s worth noting that traffic had fallen for the Johnston Press network from 6,985,175 uniques in October to 6,161,875 in December 2009: down by over ten per cent in two months. Traffic had been dropping off since July, however, well before the pay walls were introduced and of course, the group has only rolled out the scheme over a few of its smaller sites so far.  Unfortunately, the trialled sites don’t feature in the individual site break-down.

This chart shows the period-on-period change for each newspaper group, July to end of December 2009. (ie. compared with the previous six months)

Unique daily browsers, by regional newspaper group:

GMG Regional Network

Trinity Mirror

Iliffe News & Media Ltd (note that the largest column is its entire network overall, which includes other sites as well)

Johnston Press

Newsquest

Midlands News

Johnston Press’ ad revenues feel effects of recession

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Johnston Press has today reported half-year revenues of £218.6 million – down 25.4 per cent year-on-year.

Print advertising revenue fell by 33.5 per cent; while digital advertising revenues also declined – by 18.8 per cent.

The publisher’s revenue from employment advertising was down by 53.8 per cent, property ads by 54.2 per cent, motors by 29.3 per cent and from other classifieds by 11.5 per cent.

The company’s interim report said ad revenues were down 32.7 per cent in the first six months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008.

In an attempt to improve their digital recruitment sites and therefore their appeal to recruitment advertisers, Johnston Press has entered into a joint venture with Daily Mail & General Trust, giving them access to the latter’s Jobsite software.

The report also expresses the group’s struggle ‘to compete with the regional activities of the publicly funded BBC digital presence’, claiming that it ‘distorts the markets within which they operate through making the charging for news content extremely difficult’.

“The timing of the economic upturn remains uncertain but advertising revenues are demonstrating greater stability
and we expect the cyclical improvement when it comes to more than compensate any structural change. We will
maintain our focus on costs and look to secure operating efficiencies during the second half of the year,” said CEO John Fry in the report.

Yesterday the publisher celebrated success after it was announced that it had attracted the most unique users, to its network of regional newspaper websites, in the first six months of 2009.

The publisher, which is responsible for more than 323 websites, recorded 6,864,820 monthly unique users on average over the period, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic’s six-monthly report for regional newspaper groups.

ABCe success for Dennis Publishing

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Dennis Publishing‘s latest Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) figures have been released highlighting a growth in popularity for the publisher’s digital titles.

Dennis’ iGIZMO, which was launched in February, attracted an average of 101,785 unique users per fortnightly issue over the last year, a press release from the group said, while weekly title Monkey recorded 283,541 unique users on average and 1,009,298 for September.

The latest figures show a fourth successive rise in ABCes for Monkey, according to the release.

Fortnightly magazine iMOTOR’s issue average for unique users was 108,622 – 221,739 in September’s figures.

These audits prove that the digital magazine sector is a viable, growing and successful business model. In addition, these titles are really delivering for our advertisers,” said Bruce Sandell, head of NPD at Dennis, in the statement.

Guardian debuts six-monthly ABCe figures for regional websites

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Guardian News and Media (GNM) has become the second publisher to officially sign up for the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic’s (ABCe) six-monthly web traffic audits, according to a release from the bureau.

The new audits will provide detailed daily, weekly and monthly breakdowns of unique user/browser and page impression figures for sites within GNM’s regional portfolio, which have previously reported web traffic stats on an ‘ad hoc’ basis.

Regional GNM sites getreading.co.uk, manchestereveningnews.co.uk and manchesteronline.co.uk , as well as thejobsmine.co.uk will be analysed as part of the new arrangement.

Online traffic data will be presented alongside print circulation figures for the titles, the bureau added.

GNM follows Northcliffe Media, which signed up 10 of its regional websites for the new certificate earlier this month.

In a press statement accompanying the announcement, Northcliffe said it plans to increase the audit to 20 sites by 2009, and to cover ‘all major urban and regional sites’ in the future.

RMRF: Trinity Mirror Regionals presents user profile survey results

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In a follow up to Tuesday’s announcement that the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) will provide user profiles alongside stats on page impressions and unique users, Guy Lipscombe, managing director of Survey Interactive – the firm behind the on-site surveys being used for the research – explained how the ‘enhanced ABCe certificates’ would work at yesterday’s Regional Media Research Forum (RMRF) event:

[audio:http://www.journalism.co.uk/sounds/GuyLipscombe.mp3]

Lipscombe was joined by Sally O’Donnell, strategic marketing manager for Trinity Mirror Regionals (TMR), who let us in on some key findings from Survey Interactive’s audience research with the group, which involved on-site questionnaires completed by 53,313 interviewees across TM’s 110 regional and national websites:

  • TM’s online portfolio in Feb 08 was reaching 3.8 million adults a month according to the surveys – a different figure from the 5.5 million unique users calculated for the sites at the same time
  • More than a third of internet users from an area covered by a TM regional title accessed the paper’s website on a regular basis
  • A third of TMR website users regularly use more than one TMR website
  • The group’s regional sites had a higher proportion of ABC1 (the National Readership Survey classification for middle class) users
  • TM regional sites were given an average rating by interviewees of 8/10
  • The regional sites attracted a young audience, but not as young as expected, said O’Donnell: majority of users were in the 35-54 age bracket

According to O’Donnell, further research will be conducted soon, as the group’s digital audience continues to grow. Sales staff training on how best to use the figures collected by the research will also be implemented – with particular attention paid to the difference between stats for ‘adults’ and ‘unique users’ to the sites and how behaviour differs amongst print and online consumers.

Guardian was wrong to buy Madeleine McCann keywords on Google

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The Guardian has admitted it mistakenly bought the keywords Madeleine McCann from Google.

By wrongly purchasing the keywords a link to the paper’s coverage of Madeleine’s disappearance appeared in a column of sponsored results when a search for her name was made on Google.

The newspaper has now taken down the link and has reviewed the list of keywords it owns, Marc Sands, marketing director for the Guardian, told Journalism.co.uk.

The paper’s purchase of the words Madeleine McCann was criticised by Justin Williams, assistant editor at Telegraph Media Group, on his personal blog, who said the practice showed the paper was ‘desperate’ to hold onto its position as the UK’s most popular newspaper website according to the most recent Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) traffic figures.

“The purchase of terms is a way of getting your stories, at a cost, in front of people. It’s absolutely what everyone does all the time,” said Sands.

[advert]A search for the terms shows the Mirror currently owns the keywords McCanns cleared, while a Google search for other keywords, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, show the the Sun and Times have also purchased phrases from Google.

“It is a way of getting it [news] distributed to people who have expressed an interest in that subject,” he added.

“The issue with the Madeleine McCann keywords is an interesting one. It’s like advertising, but not really: the only reason you and I search for a term is because we are interested in that term.”

The practice had been criticised in the blog post, he said, because of the Guardian’s previous stance on the coverage of the McCann story.

“The Guardian in the past has been very critical of the coverage of Madeleine McCann, saying it has been salacious and misleading. What the person in the blog post is saying is that Madeleine McCann is not to be treated in this way, so what on earth are they doing buying keywords?”

The issue led the paper to review its list of current keywords to assess ‘what news is okay to do it with and what isn’t’, he said.

The Guardian buys thousands of Google keywords relating to current news stories every week, he added. It currently owns the keywords ‘stamp duty’, ‘university league tables’ and ‘post office closures’.

“Madeleine McCann slipped through the net. You don’t approve all these [keyword purchases] every day. We would have had to say to the company that buys the keywords for us: never buy the keywords for Madeleine McCann,” he said.

Search engine marketing and search engine optimisation of newspaper websites is a ‘new area’ for publishers, added Sands.

“Everyone is working their way through and trying to remain true exactly to the principles of what they’re doing, but also to ensure that they’re getting read.”

Traffic soars to Times Online blogs

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Global page views of Times Online’s blogs rose past the 2.5 million mark in May this year, according to figures from the publisher – an increase of 500 per cent compared to May 2007.

The graph below shows the overall growth of its top performing blogs. Daniel Finkenstein’s Comment Central and Paris correspondent Charles Bremner’s Le Blogue are shown to perform consistently well, while The Game blog and Money Central (no doubt spurred by the recent economic downturn) have increased in popularity:

The site’s top 10 blogs in terms of global page views in May this year were:

    The Game Blog 562,835
    Money Central 552,941
    Comment Central 541,598
    Alpha Mummy 170,862
    Fanzine Fanzone 136,760
    Charles Bremner 114,884
    Formula 1 103,607
    Snakes and Ladders 94,202
    Mousetrap Technology 88,496
    Red Box 85,96

    As you can see the top three account for the majority of the blogs’ traffic. Figures for TimesOnline’s page views from May’s Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) report suggest the site recorded 117,826,926 page impressions. These stats therefore suggest blogs accounted for roughly 2.12 per cent of the site’s total page views.

      MediaGuardian: ABCe audits under review

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      The Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards (JICWEBS) has completed the first stage of its review of how data is analysed by the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) in its audit of newspaper website traffic.

      One suggestion is to include all newspaper domains that contribute to the monthly traffic figures in the ABCe reports.

      The review is ongoing with further reports expected in November.

      Shropshire Star posts 59% rise in page impressions

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      The Shropshire Star recorded 1,630,103 page impressions in April, according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe).

      The figure rose by 59 per cent from the last audit of the site in November 2007 and 103 per cent year-on-year.
      In April the site attracted 114,388 unique users – a 14 per cent increase over the five months from November.

      On average the site recorded 6,942 unique users and 54,337 page impressions per day.

      According to a release from publisher Midland News Association (MNA), the figures coincided with ‘a bumper harvest’ of user-generated content on the site following sudden snowfall in the county.