MRI Adds Issue-Specific Data

Measures readership based on age; to release income and education demographics.

By Joanna Pettas
07/08/2008

Responding to the industry’s apparent need for more accurate audience metrics, Mediamark Research and Intelligence has broadened its weekly issue-specific magazine readership reports to include age data in addition to the gender information it provides. Next month, MRI also plans to release demographics on income and education.

"Media agencies have been seeking this kind of data so they can get a little closer to the consumer targets they plan against," an MRI spokesperson wrote in an email to FOLIO:. "The new data also provide an opportunity to delve more deeply into which particular magazine issues appeal to which demographics."

The Issue Specific Readership Study, a supplement to the company’s twice-yearly survey, is based on a continuous, weekly online survey of 2,500 readers. The study has been measuring and reporting in “broad adult, male and female numbers,” according to David Shiffman, senior vice president of connections research and analytics at agency MediaVest, since June 2007. It now breaks down readership of MRI’s client magazines per issue by groups aged 18 to 34, 35 to 54 and 55 and older, marking what is, according to Shiffman, “an important step toward getting print measurement more in line with other media currencies.”

The MRI spokesperson says the study is even more promising now that there are two years of issue-specific data. For example, MRI can quantify the tendencies for certain types of issues, such as "Best of" and repeat covers to gain higher- or lower-than-average readership.