In the process of changing from FRY to Recent Reading (RR) in Norway we met the challenge of uneven publication periods, which could be of general interest. The RR model only holds up under a number of assumptions. One is that the publication is exactly regular, with all publication periods of equal length. This implies that, strictly speaking, RR is unsuited for situations where the interval between successive issues varies, which happens to be the situation for many newspapers in Norway. As a consequence, Pure Recent Reading (PRR) has been developed in Norway. PRR calculates the number of readers for the actual issue periods, depending on the day of the interview and the day of publishing. For newspapers with only 2-6 issues weekly, PRR gives better estimates than the traditional RR. The problem has been recognised elsewhere by some people, but ignored. Based on 45,000 interviews included in the NRS between August 1999 and February 2001 and which have been reported twice, the PRR method of estimating readership figures will be presented and discussed.
Before we start discussing RR and possible approaches, we will provide a brief introduction of newspaper measurements in Norway and state a few benefits and drawbacks of FRY as compared to RR.
Symposium: 2001: Venice, Session 4 - Recent Reading Issues
Authors: Futsæter, Knut Arne, Østnes, Tore
Organisations: Taylor Nelson Sofres/Gallup
Topics: Newspaper Measurement, Readership Model