The Publishers Australia board of directors voted unanimously to officially endorse the Audit Bureaux of Australia’s (ABA) Digital Audit services on May 21, 2010. This follows recommendations from the Digital Leadership Group, chaired by Chris Bishops from the Beyond Digital Media Group and PA CEO, Alan Sarkissian.

The ABA has extended the valuable free trial of their eData online resource to advertisers until September 30, 2010. Publishers who are members of the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and/or the Circulations Audit Board (CAB), can now offer their advertisers no-obligation trial access to the eData portal.

The ABA is pleased to welcome Helen Dai as the new Audit and Database Support. Helen brings with her a wealth of knowledge and experience from previous audit support roles. She will be working closely with the rest of the Audit Team headed up by Paul Dovas, Director of Audit Services and Arry Kusnadi, Senior [...]

Welcome to our second edition of the ABA Newsletter, and a big “thank you” to all who responded to our December launch edition with your suggestions and ideas.

2010 is shaping up to be a year of significant change in the media industry led in part by the recent launch of new and innovative technologies in the delivery of content on-line. From clever software solutions, (including our home grown RealView), to clever hardware platforms such as Apple’s I-Pad, the pace of change is accelerating bringing with it new opportunities and challenges for the ABC and CAB

It has been confirmed by agencies and advertisers that audited circulation data plays a vital role in media planning and purchasing decisions. This was the key finding from the recent survey conducted by the ABC and CAB, which attracted an impressive 24% response rate.

As 2009 draws to a weary close, it is worth reflecting on the successes and resilience of our media industry in Australia. Despite the dire predictions of a number of pundits, we have weathered the GFC storm and seen relatively stable circulations in both magazines and newspapers across most of our publisher members in both the ABC and CAB compared to 2008. This is a tribute to the innovation and determination of print publishers who have made enormous efforts to produce a product that remains both compelling and “a damn good read”!

In a letter sent on Tuesday 15th December , the MFA have asked their members to demand independently audited ABA web data from the online publishers they spend money with. Over the past 12-months the MFA was part of an industry-wide initiative to develop the ABA Web Audit and has been actively involved in the setting of rules that govern the audit and reporting process.

On behalf of all of us at the ABC and CAB, I would like to welcome you to our first ever email Newsletter. There has been a tremendous amount of change within the Audit Bureaux over the past 12 months which also reflects the pace of change within our industry. Our Newsletter is intended to help us communicate more effectively with both our members and with the media sector generally to ensure we keep you abreast of our new projects.

‘What do we want? – Audits!, When do we want them? – Now!’

This is the tongue-in-cheek message that the ABA recently took to media buying agencies on a national education tour that was attended by more than 160 media buying and planning professionals.

The June launch of the ABA Web Audit Service was the culmination of more than 18-months behind the scenes meetings, discussions and collaboration which resulted in industry wide endorsement of our newest audit service for online and digital media publishers. At press time, more than 75 websites are now ABA audited.