ABC India Seeking to Add Digital Measure

India's Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), which measures print media sales in the country, is in talks with the country's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) regarding the addition of digital media measurement, according to a report.

The ABC has 'made a proposal to the Union government for digital news measurement across the board', according to an unnamed source quoted in a report on www.exchange4media.com (e4m).

The move comes as India's MRUC is attempting to revive the Indian Readership Survey (IRS), mothballed since 2019. A proposed pilot of the revived service is expected to measure total readership of both print and digital publications - the ABC by contrast counts the number of copies sold, regardless of how many people read them.

e4m says the current lack of a suitable overview service of any kind leaves publishers and advertisers having to stitch together data from a number of different sources, but suggests that in the longer term, if both organisations succeed in developing their proposed surveys, 'the question [will be] whether the industry needs two parallel systems, or whether the bigger opportunity lies in making the two complementary.'

Web sites: www.mruc.net and www.auditbureau.org .