Paul Dovas says Australia's two separate circulation audit bodies will merge

AUSTRALIA’s two separate circulation audit bodies will merge into one, says the CEO of the overarching-body, the Audit Bureaux of Australia.

“We haven’t gone to the members formally yet but we’re definitely on the path of aiming to merge the two bodies,” Paul Dovas told News Now.

Currently the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) looks after paid publications while the Circulations Audit Board (CAB) looks after free publications.

The two organisations; which share an office space, are currently putting together a discussion paper for members on the merger.

It will take some time, said Mr Dovas, as both bodies have existing constitutions and processes to be followed before any change can take place.

“There’s a bit of process to go through but it’s an important process.

“We’re definitely on the path of at least putting it to members and seeing if they want to do it or not. They have to come to an agreement and have a vote.”

The existing circulations metrics will remain the same but a merger would result in greater efficiency, said Mr Dovas.

“The overall objective of the two bodies is currently the same.

“Hopefully we’ll have one body with one voice rather than having the odd scenario with two bureaus delivering similar functions.”

It’s too early to put a time-frame on the merger but the goal is to see it completed by the end of the year.

News Now talked to Mr Dovas in March when publishers voted to bring in a new circulation metric for auditing digital.

Jane Huxley's role as digital CEO and publisher no longer exists

JANE HUXLEY is leaving Fairfax after her role as chief executive officer and publisher of digital was scrapped in a company restructure.

The move is part of Fairfax Metro Media’s ongoing restructure to closer align print and online.

A new role, chief product officer, has been created to oversee product development across print, tablet, mobile and digital.

Fairfax Metro Media CEO Jack Matthews said Ms Huxley had decided she would prefer to continue on the path of general management, that rather than specialising in a product role. “For this reason, she has decided to leave Fairfax and seek this path elsewhere,” Mr Matthews said.

Fairfax is currently undertaking its “editorial review project” headed by Gary Linnell who was appointed to the newly-created role of group editorial director earlier this month.

“We’ve recognised that we need a new model for how we work in the future,” Mr Linnell told News Now at the time of his appointment.

“We currently have 800 editorial staff. Only about 10 percent of those work in digital, and we’re looking to change that.

“We now publish on multiple platforms and we need to reflect that in our newsrooms.”

The outcome of the review will be a new editorial model revealed on July 1.

No appointment has been made for the chief product officer role which will be shared in the interim by Adam Mather, Darren Burden and Melina Cruikshank.

Ms Huxley will leave her current role at the end of the month but will continue to work on a number of Fairfax projects until June 30.

She was appointed general manager of the media division of Fairfax Digital in 2008 and became CEO and digital publisher of the newly created metro division in 2011.

Ms Huxley has previously worked at Vodafone and Microsoft Australia.

Amended figures show monthly views to Fairfax phone apps have increased this quarter rather than decreased as originally reported

FAIRFAX media accidentally overstated monthly page views to its phone apps and has released amended figures.

Original figures for the second quarter of 2011 reported ‘apps – monthly page views’ as 3.3 million at the Sydney Morning Herald and 1.5 million at The Age.

It appeared to indicate a subsequent fall of 51 percent and 56 percent respectively during the third quarter according to figures released last Friday.

Fairfax has now released amended second quarter figures of 1.1 million at the Herald and 912,000 at The Age – indicating the original figures detailed the total number of page views over the three-month period not the monthly page views as suggested.

The revised figures highlight a more promising increase in monthly page views to phone apps of 54 percent (The Herald) and 68 percent (The Age) during the last quarter.

A Fairfax spokesperson told News Now: “The ‘phone apps monthly page views’ methodology was updated between Q2 and Q3 so that the reported number is an average, not a total, for the period. We have adjusted the Q2 baseline to reflect this.”

Both the original and the revised second quarter reports tabled the figure as “monthly page views”.

Staff at Adelaide’s Sunday Mail celebrated the 100th anniversary of the paper last week

ADELAIDE’S Sunday Mail has celebrated its 100^th anniversary with a cocktail function attended by executives, staff and community leaders.

Past editors Mark Day, Rex Jory and Kerry Sullivan joined Advertiser News Media managing director Ish Davies, News Limited group manager Jerry Harris, community leaders, key advertisers and staff at a function last week.

Staff of News Limited South Australia also shared in a giant birthday cake on the May 4 anniversary.

To mark the milestone, The Sunday Mail published a lift-out titled “100 years of Pride” looking back at the issues, events, trends and people that have left their mark since 1912.

Since the first edition in 1912, The Mail, has undergone multiple makeovers, new  mastheads designs, a new name (to Sunday Mail in 1954), changed its size, adopted several slogans, moved homes, documented changing social tastes and covered breaking news, sport and entertainment.

The Sunday Mail has been part of News Limited since 1923, when its predecessor The Mail was acquired by News’ founder Sir Keith Murdoch.

Today, it remains the last of the original media assets Sir Keith’s son Rupert inherited, which he used as a springboard to launch a global media and communications company, News Corporation. Rupert became publisher of The News and The Mail after the death of his father – and by October 1953 was in a Sunday newspaper fight with The Advertiser, which launched the Sunday Advertiser. Rupert added Sunday to the masthead, in February 1954, before both companies called a truce in late 1955, joining forces to publish The Sunday Mail under the umbrella of Advertiser-News Weekend Publishing.

Sunday Mail editor Megan Lloyd said: “At a time when Australians have never been more interested in their ancestry, it’s been a privilege to revisit the history of The Sunday Mail and to be editor during such a milestone”.

“For a century The Sunday Mail has been proudly parochial of South Australia and its community of readers – their lives, causes, interests, success and pursuits.”

CEO of APN New Zealand Media, Martin Simons (left), collects one of three INMA Awards won by the New Zealand Herald

NEWSPAPER publishers in the Australia New Zealand region dominated the International News Media Marketing Association awards this week, taking out 12 trophies.

In its 77^th year, the INMA Awards had 540 entries by 141 marketing news media companies from 34 countries.

The New Zealand Herald was one of only two papers to win three first-place awards: new brand/product/audience development for its Element Magazine, best advertising sales and retention for its Driven – Motoring From Every Angle campaign, and print and digital subscription sales for its Reaching Out to Rural Markets campaign.

“It shows the quality of innovative thinking and client collaboration by the Herald in developing new products is world class,” said publisher APN’s New Zealand CEO, Martin Simons.

“Having our efforts celebrated on the world stage is very gratifying. It means we are on the right path, but with plenty to do,” he said.

News Limited titles won nine trophies – more than any other company.

Three newspapers jointly won first place in the single copy print sales category for their mini cookbook giveaway in the Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph and the Hobart Mercury.

The Townsville Bulletin collected two third places for its Colour Your World campaign in brand awareness across platforms and its Cyclone Yasi – Bouncing Back campaign in public relations and community service.

The Gold Coast Bulletin also collected two third places for its Mates’ Rates campaign in marketing solutions for advertising clients and its Gold Coast Bulletin + News Magazines circulation offer in print and digital subscription sales.

NewsLocal community papers in Sydney won second place for its Hot Offers campaign and the Adelaide Advertiser claimed third for Adelaide Trader in advertising sales and retention.

News Limited’s Pride of Australia awards won third place in public relations and community service.

“It is inspirational to see News Limited’s titles holding their heads high among more than 500 entries from the greatest newspaper brands in the world,” said group editorial director, Campbell Reid.

Fairfax New Zealand titles took home two second places – the Sunday Star-Times in new brand/product/audience development for its Origami campaign and The Press in advertising sales and retention for its Long Lunch competition.

Third place in print and digital sales subscriptions went to Fairfax metro The Sydney Morning Herald for its Weekender Subscriptions campaign.

The West Australian; published by Seven West Media, was second in marketing solutions for advertising clients for its City of Perth Festival of Christmas.

The only winner from Singapore was Singapore Press Holding’s entertainment portal omy.sg which took home third place in the same category.

“The trend we noted with this year’s winning entries was utilisation of multi-media to promote products and solutions across platforms,” said INMA CEO, Earl J. Wilkinson.

“News publishers have crossed the rubicon in terms of using all media at their disposal to market themselves. There is very little single-medium focus in the marketing world. Media companies are no exception.”

The awards were the culmination of the 82nd INMA World Congress, held in Los Angeles.

A full list of winners is available here.

Inception Digital will capitalise on The Guardian's 2.4 million monthly Australian browsers

GUARDIAN News & Media has appointed a Sydney-based media agency to sell Australian advertising on its digital, tablet and mobile platforms.

Inception Digital will capitalise on the 2.4 million monthly Australian browsers who access The Guardian’s website.

The guardian.co.uk has 68 million monthly browsers, making it the third most popular newspaper website in the world behind the Daily Mail and the New York Times.

Australia has the fourth highest number of visitors to The Guardian website behind the United Kingdom, the US and Canada.

“We look forward to continuing to deepen our reach and engagement with the Australian audience,” international head of Guardian News & Media, Liz Werrey-Easterbrook said.

Inception Digital’s commercial director, Guy Burbidge said: “The Guardian is a world-class brand and typifies the brands we work with”.

The Guardian was named Newspaper of the Year at the British Press Awards 2011.

The new metric is a world first that separates digital paid sales from print paid sales.

It was endorsed by publisher vote in March this year and is incorporated for the first time in this quarterly report.

The metric cuts out duplication by separately reporting print only sales, replica digital versions, enhanced digital versions (tablets) and paid website subscriptions.

Under the new system, publishers can voluntarily report their digital sales figures until the new metric becomes compulsory in June, 2013.

Fairfax reported paid digital sales of 36,816 at The Sydney Morning Herald and 40,268 at the Sun-Herald. Melbourne metro mastheads reported paid digital sales of 9,311 at The Age and 9,376 at Sunday Age.

Monthly phone app page views have dropped 51 percent at the SMH and 56 percent at The Age since last quarter

Phone app monthly page views were down 51 percent and 56 percent since last quarter at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age respectively, according to Fairfax’s quarterly Metro Media Audience Report – also released today.

It is an apparent fall from 3.3 million to 1.7 million page views on the Herald phone app and 2.7 million to 1.5 million page views on The Age phone app.

News Limited has chosen not to disclose its digital figures under the ABC metric until it becomes compulsory. Its own figures released on Thursday report a unique monthly audience of 5.2 million Australians to its digital mastheads and 40,000 digital subscribers to The Australian.

All publishers must disclose digital sales figures according to the new ABC rule by June 2013.

“Today’s data release quite literally redefines media reporting in this country,” said ABC chairman Stephen Hollings.

“Australia’s media industry has led the way in creating these metrics, recognising both the rise of digital publishing and the changing nature of how content is consumed across print and digital media platforms.”

News Limited chief executive Kim Williams acknowledged its significance. He said the new measurement system the industry was moving towards would provide a more complete picture over time.

Fairfax Media Metro chief executive Jack Matthews said: “We now manage our business on a multi-platform basis, and comprehensive audience measurement across all our platforms is critical to providing our stakeholders with a complete picture of the evolution of audience engagement with our major Metro Media brands.”

ABC chief executive Paul Dovas congratulated the newspapers that chose to voluntarily report digital sales and encouraged others to follow their lead.

“We are delighted that these early adopters have already taken the opportunity to report under the new rules and, as publishers adjust their systems and recognise the value of this more granular sales data, we will see more titles reporting,” said Mr Dovas.

“Delivering the same level of accountability and confidence that print has enjoyed over the past 80 years to digital, will ensure certainty into the future for our industry.”

Print circulation figures only tell a partial story, said CEO of The Newspaper Works Tony Hale.

“The robust, ongoing growth of audiences engaging with newspapers across online, mobile and tablet platforms demonstrates how effectively publishers have managed the fundamental structural changes occurring in the industry.”

Australians bought more than 18 million newspapers weekly in the first quarter of 2012

AUSTRALIANS bought more than 18 million printed newspapers each week in the first quarter of 2012, according to figures released today.

It is the first quarter where new Audit Bureau of Circulation rules report publishers’ print and digital sales separately.

Total weekly sales of national, metropolitan and regional papers were 18.5 million in the three months to March 31, 2012.

News Limited titles fared best with print sales dof The Australian down 1.6 percent, and the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph down 1.4 percent last year.

Print sales of Fairfaxtitles were down since this time last year 13.6 percent at the Sydney Morning Herald, 10.8 percent at the Sun-Herald, 8.2 percent at the Canberra Times, 13.4 at The Age and 8.6 at Sunday Age.

Fairfax Media said this is in tune with its planned reduction in regional print circulation.

Monday to Saturday sales of newspapers fell five percent this quarter compared to the same period in 2011, after a 3.9 percent decline in the December 2011 quarter. Only three newspapers recorded positive growth: The Daily Telegraph Saturday edition in Sydney, which posted a 0.8 percent gain; The West Australian Saturday edition in Perth (up 0.5 percent); and The Advertiser weekday edition in Adelaide (up 0.1 per cent).

The falls were within the expectations of newspaper publishers given difficult economic conditions, according to The Newspaper Works who promote the newspaper industry in Australia.

“The decline in printed newspaper sales in the March quarter is evidence of an economy that is still very fragile,” CEO Tony Hale said.

“However, it should be noted that the overall weekly sales volumes of printed newspapers in this country are still very substantial in such an uncertain economic environment and show how much Australians still value their newspapers.”

News Limited CEO, Kim Williams said: “The ABC circulation figures released today are useful in providing guidance on how one important part of the market is performing – namely print media”.

“Our newspapers are an extraordinarily potent advertising medium as they strongly connect with their readers and communities in relevant and very familiar ways.”

Fairfax Metro Media CEO Jack Matthews said: “We’ve said before thatFairfaxjournalism is reaching a larger audience than ever before. What this report shows is that our strategic focus on sustainable and profitable circulation for our print platform is not impeding the ability of our mastheads to continue the growth of our total audience.”

Reporting of sales according to day of the week is also now mandatory for the first time following a publisher and advertiser agreement last year.

Separating Monday to Friday sales from weekend sales increases transparency.

SELF-REGULATION is fundamental to the preservation of a free and independent news media, says the Australian media union who are “disappointed” by the Finkelstein Inquiry and the Convergence Review missing the opportunity to properly discuss the future of the news industry.

A report by the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance examines the factors limiting press freedom in Australia including spin, whistleblower laws, freedom of information, secrecy provisions, and detention centre access.

The number of journalists in Australia is declining while the number of professional media managers or public relations employees is growing.

The report warns of the “chilling effect this has on free speech” and the “danger of the “comment cycle” where opinion is increasingly replacing factual stories”.

Australian journalists are being pressured by courts to reveal the identities of their sources. Protection for whistleblowers is getting “bogged down” in arguments over the definition of “a journalist” and “journalism”, said the report. Australia-wide legislation protects anyone engaged and active in the publication of news, while the legislation in the state of NSW narrows the definition to “a person engaged in the profession or occupation of journalism in connection with the publication of information in a news medium”.

The report suggests “the urgency” of getting whistleblower legislation right to ensure journalists are protected in all states and territories. Commentary is included from those who do not believe the current government has the resolve to deliver on its promises for whistleblower protection.

Freedom of information in Australia was ranked 39 out of 85 countries in a recent international survey. The report highlights the “lack of a constitutional right of access to information” and “widespread exemptions” as contributing factors.

Australia has more than 500 secrecy provisions in 176 pieces of legislation. Journalists may break them; inadvertently or otherwise, in the course of their work and incur fines or imprisonment of up to 10 years.

The report recommends repealing these secrecy provisions and replacing them with a general secrecy offence that is limited to disclosures that clearly harm the public interest.

The report criticises an agreement that journalists are required to sign before visiting detention centres and talking to asylum seekers, released last October by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC). It forces journalists to hand over cameras and tape recorders for scrutiny and be accompanied at all times inside detention centres by a DIAC officer who can end their visit at any time.

“The Media Alliance has criticised this deed as overly restrictive and is leading a public campaign to persuade the department to rethink the policy.”

The report, “Kicking at the cornerstone of democracy: The state of press freedom in Australia”, will be released at the annual Press Freedom dinner in Sydney tonight.

It is “required reading for anyone who believes that a strong, independent and diverse news industry is a key guarantor for democracy”, said the union.

Austen Chan is the winner of My Paper Executive 2012

SINGAPORE’S My Paper Executive 2012 has been named as architectural assistant Austen Chan.

The 28-year-old beat 15 other finalists to take home the SGD$10,000 cash prize in the Singapore Press Holdings-sponsored event.

During the grand finals last Friday, the final five were subjected to questioning by a panel of established editors and executives.

First runner-up went to business consultant Marcus Royce Lee, who received SGD$5,000.

Third place went to Manny Too – also an architectural assistant – who collected SGD$3,000.

Now in its fifth year, the award is an annual competition to find a male or female from Singapore who best epitomises the ideal urban executive.

The competition is open to executives aged between 25 to 39 years old.

This year it attracted a record 535 entries.

The award aims to raise the profile of Singapore’s best and brightest young executives.

Mr Chan “had the ability to think on his feet, and was true to himself. We should all be like that rather than be conformists,” said creative director of Singapore Press Holdings, Tommy Lim.

Mr Chan said he will use the prize money to fund a United States snowboarding trip and purchase a smartphone.