PAMCo marks start of second year as sector currency

Print remains “resilient” in the fifth round of results from PAMCo, which mark the first opportunity for year-on-year comparisons on multi-platform readership.

PAMCo is the joint industry currency, launched in April last year, that replaced the NRS as a cross-platform measurement covering readership for newsbrands and magazines across phone, tablet, desktop and print.

In the latest results (PAMCo 1 2019), which tracked January-December 2018, print remains the most widely utilised form of reader engagement, with a monthly reach of 35.4 million. It is followed closely by phone, which clocked 34.3 million monthly readers.

PAMCo chief executive Simon Redican said: “It has been a very good year with people becoming more comfortable with the use of the new currency and it allows publishers to get to grips with their readership, especially with phone and tablet.

“One of the first things I noticed looking over data between PAMCo 1 2019 and 2018 is that the sector appears to be in rude health, with its reach bigger than ever. Mobile formats – phone and tablet – are undeniably growing, but print is still the biggest.

“Print remains resilient and the important thing about this system for national brands is that they can see how each format feeds into the others and commercialise that as much as possible. My aspiration is to push users further to exploit the data to its full and make sure they are getting the full value from PAMCo.”

PAMCo is funded by UK national publishers represented by the News Media Association (NMA) and the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) together with the agency customer body, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). PAMCo also has board representation from the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA).

NMA and PPA member publications and publishers are automatically included in the figures, though third parties can pay for subscriptions to see their own readership figures.

Among newsbrands in the latest data, The Sun and The Mail had the widest monthly reach of 29.3 million readers each, though on print alone it is Metro that comes out ahead with a monthly reach of 9.5 million readers engaging with its newspaper.