Roy Morgan Research Slams emma Giveaway

In Australia, audience measurement firm Roy Morgan Research has hit out at industry body The Newspaper Works' plans to offer its new emma newspaper and magazine readership survey free for the next 12 months, describing the move as 'predatory pricing'.

Enhanced Media Metrics Australia - otherwise known as emma - was finally launched in June, three years after Ipsos MediaCT was selected to run the programme. The survey is funded by the newspaper industry and is a direct competitor to the existing metric run by Roy Morgan, which declined to participate in the original tender. At the time, The Newspaper Works said it had called the tender after Roy Morgan did not respond to countless requests over many years, to explain 'discrepancies and errors in its data'.

Last month, emma's first set of figures showed substantially larger audiences than the metrics produced by Roy Morgan, almost doubling the reader numbers for some titles. Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said in a statement that her firm doesn't know if newspapers have sought to increase their advertising rates as a result of the higher readership levels reported in the survey, but the moment they do, Newspaper Works may have 'crossed the line' between being an industry body and a cartel.

Levine added she was surprised that the survey is being 'given away', and asks whether media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the Board of his News Corporation are aware of the move.

'It is not absolutely clear to us who will be held legally responsible if the proposed 'giving away' of the research is held to breach the Cartel Conduct provisions of the Competition and Consumer Law: News Corp as the major source of funding for the research; Newspaper Works, the newspaper industry body responsible for commissioning and controlling the research; or Ipsos the research company commissioned to conduct the survey,' Levine added.

Earlier in the week, senior media buyers told online publication Mumbrella that Ipsos offering 'price-slashing deals' to ensure media agencies sign up to the new emma survey, means they can continue to use both Roy Morgan data while evaluating the emma metrics.

Web sites: www.roymorgan.com and www.thenewspaperworks.com.au .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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