In a move president Steve Ferley calls the biggest development since its 2001 switch from through-the-book to recent reading methodology, the Print Measurement Bureau will move to a bi-annual release schedule next year.
The switch is a response to increased demand for more up-to-date information from agencies, advertisers and publishers, said Ferley. “This sort of fits in with the overall trend of the industry towards faster data that’s more up to date,” he added. “Other media are supplying data more frequently, and when new media come on stream, they’ve got data the next day.”
PMB will now release magazine readership data in March and September. It will also issue twice-yearly product- and brand-use data from the most recent year of interviewing (based on a sample size of 12,500).
Ferley said the increased frequency won’t compromise PMB’s data quality, while costs will be in line with standard inflationary increases. “Because we’re not having to do anything with the fieldwork, the costs are going to be digestible,” he said.
“We are delighted,” said Rogers Publishing president and CEO Brian Segal of the switch to a bi-annual release. “[The increased frequency provides] more timeliness for the magazine industry without losing the incredible research quality and the enviable product database.”
