Newly appointed NewsMediaWorks chief executive Peter Miller has hit out at third-party networks which offer "little or no editorial standards or quality control".
In his first public comment since taking up office, he said new News Media Index figures - which report $2.1 billion in advertising revenue for Australia's news media sector in the year ended June 30 - show a trend that premium websites are underrepresented in programmatic revenue.
Advertisers were chasing quantity over quality and safety of ad placement: "Branding has never simply been a numbers game," he said.
"Too often, the impression you buy via third party ad networks is not the impression you leave your customer. The reputational risk that automated placement of ads on third party networks and alongside user-generated content needs to be addressed. Unlike premium news brands, these sites offer little or no editorial standards or quality control."
Miller (pictured) said there was a need to "push the reset button" on perceptions of news media and ask advertisers and their advisors take a fresh and objective look at the sector: "News media continues to deliver large, highly engaged audiences who trust their preferred news source. Digital readership continues to grow and in a number of cases print readership has also bucked the trend."
The $2.1 billion in advertising revenue reported in the latest News Media Index - with data collated by Standard Media Index - holds the Australian news media sector's place as the third largest media sector based on advertising revenue.
Digital news media revenue has again posted strong growth, up 7.5 per cent while direct advertisers' support of national titles grew 4.5 per cent in the financial year. Revenue from direct advertisers now accounts for 53.8 per cent (up from 51.1 per cent) while print represents 77 per cent of total sector revenue.
|
News Media Index by media type |
|||
|
FY2016 |
FY2017 |
% change YOY |
|
|
Total Industry |
$2.33bn |
$2.10bn |
-10.9% |
|
|
$1.82bn |
$1.56bn |
-14.5% |
|
Digital |
$430m |
$463m |
7.5% |
|
NIMs |
$80m |
$72m |
-10.1% |
Unlike the monthly SMI data which reports agency only revenue, the quarterly News Media Index reports all print and digital ad revenue to Australia's largest news media publishers - News, Fairfax and WAN - from both agencies and direct advertisers and is independently verified by SMI.
The latest NMI data again shows that premium news media websites attracted less than 11 per cent of the total programmatic ad market's revenue in the latest quarter despite reaching 70 per cent, or 13 million (according to emma figures for the 12 months to May 2017), Australians aged 14+ each month.
SMI Australia/NZ managing director Jane Schulze says given the ongoing concerns around brand safety "it was surprising to see no marked difference in the level of programmatic advertising being directed towards premium news media."