Paper or Pixels

Hot on the desk is the PADD (Print and digital data) survey from the NRS. Long discussed this is the first formal measurement by the NRS of readership across both paper and digital versions of their titles. To a very large degree a lot of the learning here has been presaged by Touchpoints, who have been measuring readership on and offline for several years. But it’s the first time our gold standard readership currency has published joint figures, so it’s worthy of note. The numbers on national press hold no surprises. Biggest gainers from adding digital are The Guardian - web adds another 65% to their daily readership, and 119% to their monthly reach. At the bottom of the newspaper pile we find The Daily Star, chalking up just 1.3% gains from their website. Much more interesting are the magazine results. Firstly we see a bigger impact across the board. Of the 110 odd tiles measured 2/3rds of them recorded net gains by adding web of more than 30%. And at the top end, really big gains - 984% being the record to date. And secondly, and I think more interesting - we see a marked difference between the business models off and online. BBC Easy Cook, who topped the rankings with a massive 984% gain, has bbcgoodfood.com as its web partner. Now to call bbcgoodfood.com a magazine is stretching definitions more than a little in one sense, but it does reflect the major reason why the magazine is purchased - for recipe ideas and support and services that the consumer needs in the most efficient way possible. The second major trend is the partnering between offline magazines and online ecommerce sites. In some cases the magazine came first (eg Boots Health and Beauty and Boots.com) but in others (eg Asos) the magazine is the “new” media channel. I rather suspect that we may see more of the latter as our pure play digerati learn the lessons that Google has learned and turn to old fashioned print for marketing. We think that this is an area worthy of more debate, and it will form part of our next seminar “The future of print: paper or pixels” on October 10th. If you would like to join us then call Cathy Lawler on 020-7307 6104 for a place on the guest list. Mike Colling, Managing Director