National Readership survey (NRS)

Definition:
A programme of quantitative and qualitative research into readership of the NATIONAL PRESS in Britain, established in 1954. It was first commissioned and co-ordinated by the INSTITUTE OF PRACTITIONERS IN ADVERTISING, then by JICNARS (q.v.) and since 1992 by NATIONAL READERSHIP SURVEYS LTD. The market research agency RSL collects the input data twice a year, by Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing of around 37,500 readers of national newspapers and magazines. Respondents are asked when they 'last looked at, no matter where, a series of publications identified by their mastheads. The umber who answer 'yesterday' or 'today' for a daily, 'within the last seven days' for a weekly, or' within the last four weeks' for a monthly are aggregated into the estimated 'average issue readership' for each title. Their composite socio-demographic make-up defines its 'readership profile', and their reading behaviour is similarly aggregated into a general description. MEDIA PLANNERS can obtain data for titles individually , by area or by category, extensively broken down into sub-categories. The most basic details for each title covered by the NRS research are reported in BRAD (q.v.).

Cross-References:
[national press] [Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA)] [JICNARS] [media planner] [Brad]

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