Northcliffe regionals to undergo six month ABCe audits
The half-year audits will include a breakdown of regional titles' performance
– 1 min read
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Northcliffe Media's regional news titles will undergo six-monthly audits of their website traffic, as part of a new certification process from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) .
The data collected by the bureau will cover Northcliffe's Media Network and 10 of its regional titles, including thisisnottingham.co.uk , thisisplymouth.co.uk and thisishull.co.uk .
Northcliffe's other local sites - it has over 100 - will not feature in the half-year audits, but the group said in a statement that by 2009 it hopes to increase the audit to 20 sites, and to cover 'all major urban and regional sites' in the future.
The figures will give individual information on monthly, weekly and daily unique user/browsers to the sites.
It is important to illustrate to the advertising community that Northcliffe has a 'thriving and growing online audience,' said Sean Mahon, director of marketing for Northcliffe Media, in the group's statement.
"These individual sites ABCe figures are the next stage of an ongoing process to provide transparency on our online reach," he said.
The move will allow Northcliffe to demonstrate its 'cross-platform' performance 'clearly and regularly', said Martyn Gates, director of newspapers at ABCe, in a press statement .
"Regional publishers with online titles can provide advertisers with figures which are credible, comparable and transparent," he said.
The release from the ABCe said regional newspaper publishers have previously reported their website figures on an ad hoc basis, but the new six monthly certificate, which has been developed in association with the Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards (JICWEBS), requires continuous reporting. Mirror Group debuted ABCe figures for its digital network in March , but as yet there is no breakdown for its regional sites.
A search for Archant and Johnston Press sites on the ABCe website suggest the publishers are not signed up for online audits by the bureau.
Last week Journalism.co.uk spoke with Richard Foan, managing director of the ABCe , about the importance of clear industry metrics.
