First ABCe audit figures for ‘thisis’ regional sites

Northcliffe Media announces first ABCe audit figures for individual ‘thisis’ regional sites

• Northcliffe Media delivering more transparency for advertisers by providing audited figures for print and online
• Ten ‘thisis’ websites audited in first phase with more to follow in the future
• ABCe figures complement recent de-duplicated Survey Interactive audience reach stats

 
London: 9 September, 2008

Northcliffe Media, regional news and information publisher and part of DMGT (Daily Mail General Trust), today published individual ABCe figures for ten of its ‘thisis’ websites. The ten sites, including www.thisisbristol.co.uk, www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk, www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk and www.thisishull.co.uk, are the first in Northcliffe Media’s portfolio of over 100 local websites to undergo the independent verification and certification, which provides even more transparency on audience reach for the advertising and media buying community.

The first phase of ABCe audits covers the ten individual sites in the Northcliffe Media ‘thisis’ portfolio with the largest audiences. This is set to grow to 20 sites for the period January to June 2009 with the ultimate aim of covering all major urban and regional sites in the future. Northcliffe Media is also working with the ABCe to ensure that digital audit figures are published in line with the established press auditing cycle, thereby allowing a combined Group Product Report to be published.

The ABCe certificates are available to view at www.abce.org.uk and cover the period from 1st April to 30th June 2008. The ten individual sites showed reach figures ranging from 120,000 to 319,000 unique users / browsers per month. The latest audited figures follow on from Northcliffe Media and Survey Interactive’s study from earlier in the year that calculated the total de-duplicated audience reach across print and online – the first time that such data has been available to advertisers. The study showed that Northcliffe Media’s de-duplicated monthly reach across all of its newspapers and websites was approximately 4.7 million adults (based on a combination of Average Issue Readership and monthly online visitors).

The latest Northcliffe Media data provides even more transparency for advertisers wishing to use Northcliffe Media’s newspaper and ‘thisis’ network. Northcliffe Media offers a strong proposition for advertisers, with the ability to tailor campaigns across papers and online. Its key classified partnerships within jobs, property and motors with DMGT owned brands, Jobsite, Findaproperty and Motors.co.uk, offer best in class digital platforms and brands for advertisers and consumers.

Northcliffe Media is in the process of rolling out its next generation of ‘thisis’ websites, which boast improved performance and stability combined with advanced search engine optimisation (SEO) and user generated content (UGC) to ensure best possible end user experience. The new websites are designed to offer advertisers an opportunity to capitalise on an ever expanding ‘local digital’ audience.

Sean Mahon, Director of Marketing for Northcliffe Media, said: “We are very excited about the growth we’ve experienced across our ‘thisis’ network during the last few months. This is down to the ongoing development of our websites in order to deliver everything our users need in terms of news, entertainment and local classifieds. It is important at the same time to illustrate to the advertising community that we have a thriving and growing online audience. These individual sites ABCe figures are the next stage of an ongoing process to provide transparency on our online reach. When combined with our existing audited newspaper circulations and our recent de-duplicated on/offline reach figures, we’re able to provide advertisers with a complete picture of our audience.”

In January, the Northcliffe Media ‘thisis’ network attracted over 3 million unique users. Northcliffe has seen a 45% year-on-year growth online.

-ENDS-
 
Notes to Editors
 
The ten sites included in the first ABCe audit are:
www.thisisbristol.co.uk
www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk
www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk
www.thisishull.co.uk
www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk
www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk
www.thisisnottingham.co.uk
www.thisisplymouth.co.uk
www.thisissouthwales.co.uk
www.thisisthesentinel.co.uk

Press contacts for Northcliffe Media :
Nelson Bostock Communications
Nick Clark - nick.clark@nelsonbostock.com / 020 7792 7464
Bethan Thomas – bethan.thomas@nelsonbostock.com / 020 7792 7425

Northcliffe Media
Director of Marketing, Northcliffe Media – Sean Mahon, sean.mahon@northcliffemedia.co.uk
 
About Northcliffe Media
Northcliffe Media has built upon its role as one of the UK’s largest regional news publishers and established itself as a fully integrated multimedia information provider in order to best serve its audience.

Operating from multiple publishing centres it publishes in excess of 100 newspaper titles each week and operates a growing network of 56 local media websites. The company continues to grow rapidly throughout Europe, with major publishing interests in Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia

About ABCe
ABCe (www.abce.org.uk) was established in 1996 as the industry owned, non profit distributing organisation, which works on behalf of advertisers, media buyers and media owners to provide third party independent verification and certification for data related to e media (Internet, Email, SMS, Interactive TV, WAP, PDA and Streaming audio and video) in the UK and Ireland.