Magazines' Average Audience Up 9.3% From Last Year
- by Sara Guaglione , September 30, 2016
The latest Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Report reveals the average audience for magazine brands is up 9.3% versus a year ago, the largest increase since early 2015, according to the MPA.
The August 2016 data shows that print — which includes digital editions — is holding steady, with a slight 1.2% increase in audience.
Most new unique users come from the mobile Web, which is also the largest source of monthly magazine media growth (+28.5%), as audiences shift from viewing on desktops and laptops to mobile devices.
While video represents the lowest share platform in the report, every month it continues to log double-digit percentage growth, with a notable jump of 65% in its year-over-year performance, the MPA reports.
The report also shows that of the 133 reported magazine brands, two-thirds of them (90 brands) have higher average audience numbers compared to August 2015.
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The brands that had the highest percentage growth compared to August of last year are W (131.5%), Marie Claire (82.1%), New Yorker (69.2%), Esquire (61.6%) and Runner’s World (50%).
The top five participating brands with the highest total audience — across print, Web, mobile Web and video — for August 2016 are ESPN The Magazine, People, Forbes, WebMD and Allrecipes.
As you all know the reports of digital advertising ad fraud are reaching epidemic proportions. It seems no report and no data stream can be trusted. There is a headline today from Ad Age that reads CMOs Are Sick of Digital Ad Hype, and I can point you to literally a dozen others of the same kind. Tempers are rising and advertisers are getting pissed off. Agencies are increasingly under the gun. And as I reported to you just a few days ago, the agencies are among the few who are having amazing growth. Apparently growth based on a substantial bit of known fraud.
The irony of this as I was working today was to receive the latest The Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Report for August 2016. “The report shows that the average audience for magazine brands is up 9.3% versus a year ago, the largest increase since early 2015.” The report goes on to state, “As we have seen since reporting began, Mobile Web contributes the majority of new unique users and is the largest source of monthly magazine media growth (+28.5%).”
I have to ask how much of that report contains incorrectly attributed digital data? Now let me be positively clear here, I am not in any way accusing anyone at the MPA of intentional or unintentional fraud. They are just stuck in a digital situation where the truth is increasingly unclear at best. I know that the Magazine Media 360° uses data from what they say are leading third-party providers. I’m sure that is true and the third-party providers do the best they can under the given circumstances.
But if incorrect and suspect numbers are everywhere else, isn’t it possible that it could be true here, too? It seems to me to be a fair and honest question. If my memory is correct the reports have been near or at double digit growth year over year since the reports came into effect.
I guess my inquiry boils down to this question: how do we know what is real and what isn’t? I ask because there are doubts everywhere else on the web and they are growing. This question needs to be researched and answered.
This new attitude and focus on industry-wide fraud isn’t going to go away, and buyers are increasingly resistant wasting their time and, more importantly, their money on fraudulent ad buys. Our industry must react quickly and with complete transparency and sooner rather than later.
Absolutely right, Robert and the only answer appears to be a single, independent auditing entity, not controlled by either ad sellers or buyers and funded by both.
Amen! Where is the full and complete Technical Appendix on this 360 Magazine Media Report? (Remember those?) Magazines need a "Project Blueprint" type of pseudo single source approach to provide the industry more meaningful total net (not gross) harmonized issue by issue or average issue audience data that surely should include MPX and allow for magazine velocity (correct term!). Sorry Ed but I do not beleive that an "auditing entiitly" is the solution.
Bo's comment regarding "incorrectly attributed digital data" is on point. It must be addressed by any entity executing data integrations albeit from "leading third party providers" that are known to reflect such fundamental flaws especially indusrty associations. Digital access to magazine editorial will continue to grow of course so this audience element becomes more and more important. In addressing the issues of digital fraud, audience harmonization across formats, gross versus net total issue audience data, ad exposure versus issue exposure, delivery timing, etc. MPA has a unique opportunity to serve the industry and support its members with its new 720 Report!!
Tony, By "independent auditing entity" I was referring to the digital media mess, not to magazines. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Understood. WhiteOps is one company that is addressing the highly complex fraud issues with their SITD, "Sophisticated Invalid Traffic Detection" models which are offered to all sectors of our industry. They have been accredited by the MRC (an audit of an audit!). While accreditation is certainly not the be all and end all, it offers the "great unwashed" in this crazy cyber universe a level of confidence that crtical technical guidelines have been met or addressed by a media service.
Perhps the MPA should add WhiteOps to their "leading third party providers" to address Bo's legitimate concerns along with the other issues I raised? The new 720 Magazine Media Report might even earn an MRC accreditation!
In my experience downunder, the variation between reputable third-parties data (digital) also leaves a lot to be desired. If they all purport to be measuring the same entities and the same audience to the same guidelines and rules, why is the difference so marked.