Statements about online Canadians' magazine reading habits questioned by PMB
Using the "past week" Internet usage definition, PMB results show that 68% of Internet users have read a magazine in the past week, 84% in the past month and 91% in the past three months. Each of those levels is higher than the figure for the average Canadian. PMB offers several different definitions of Internet users, including heavy users, light users and recent users. The same results are found for these different definitions. Further, whatever definition is used, PMB data show that Internet users read more magazines per month (between 5.4 and 5.7) than the average Canadian (5.3 issues)...He pointed out that the PMB study is the accepted Canadian media industry measurement for magazine reading activity. It is based on a rigorous methodology using a probability sample and face-to-face interviewing in the home with over 12,000 Canadians every year, including Canadians who access and use the internet at varying levels.
It is not for PMB to speculate on why the figures quoted from Mr. [Mark] Laver [author of the study] and sourced from an Ipsos Reid survey of 2,644 Canadians are so dramatically different from the industry accepted data. However, we were struck by the fact that an advertisement beside the article led readers to an Ipsos Reid panel recruiting website. Media researchers in the advertising industry are becoming increasingly aware of the challenges and inaccuracies of predicting media habits using recruited Internet panelists.
One final point: In the article, Mr. Laver suggests that younger Canadians aged 18-34 are watching less television. That may be so for TV, but PMB's trend data on magazine reading show this age group read more magazines - about 10% higher than the average Canadian.
posted by D. B. Scott at
10:04 am
1 Comments:
See, the problem here is that the original Media in Canada story didn't bother to solicit a response from PMB, which is essentially a rival collector of media-habit information. Why? Well, Brunico, which owns Media in Canada, sees value in pithy, decontexualized reportage.
It is not alone; lots of esteemed publishers (on- and off-line) are spitting this stuff out at such a furious rate that reporters don't have time to produce intelligent (read: well-rounded) stories. It's just a "git 'er out there" approach to industry reporting (trade journalism).
I don't mean to single out Brunico; we all know that most of us do it. Let's be honest: we all produce a lot of in-a-hurry online crap.
Part of the problem is that most trade publishers don't really care. No low- to mid-level reporter (the grunts who are writing this stuff) have the years-of-industry-experience nor the time nor the good sense to have, for example, picked up the phone and chatted with PMB regarding this survey result. An experienced reporter would have seen a bigger story here, the headline of which would have been "Shotgun survey contradicts comprehensive 2-year PMB study." No, that story doesn't get written. What we get is a 250-word regurgitation from a reporter who isn't paid enough to know better followed by a cranky letter to the editor and everyone goes back to sleep. That appears to be just how most trade publishers want it. Oh god, just shoot me now.
And we wonder why trade journalism in Canada is such a hopeless gulag. I'm sorry, no one likes a corrosive cynic but this Media in Canada story really highlights much of what's wrong: rookie reportage. We are doomed to it because that's all we're willing to pay for. Just shoot me already.
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