What you need to know:

• In coming months, SMI will add a breakdown of how much revenue news publishers are getting from programmatic advertising.
• The change will be reflected in SMI’s Overview Report and will align with Roy Morgan’s “Total News” category, based on ThinkNewsBrands’ definition of news.

Standard Media Index will soon add programmatic ad spend with major news outlets to its reporting, creating a new “Total News” section in its reporting.

At the Independent Media Agencies of Australia’s ‘Operation Bounceback’ event earlier this month, SMI’s Managing Director AU/NZ Jane Ractliffe said it is notoriously difficult to get a breakdown of programmatic spend, which is usually lumped in with digital – but that would soon change for News media. Roy Morgan already breaks down “Total News” as a separate category for audience reporting.

“That’s a huge thing because we know it’s always difficult to measure programmatic. You see a big black hole of spend every month in the SMI numbers. We’re working on how to improve that, but this is one major way we’re going to get more visibility on the true size of ad spend to news media,” she said.

“And in this world, where there’s so much fake news, to be able to properly measure premium news, to be able to understand those audiences, to support it, effectively, I think is just incredibly important.”

Bulk programmatic data is already counted, but it isn’t split out – that’s what will be changed in coming weeks. In the SMI Overview reporting, there will be a News Media “Print” section, a News Media “Digital” section, a News Digital “Programmatic” section, as well as a “Total News” figure. The change is part of a concerted push by ThinkNewsBrands to improve measurement of news.

“There is an outdated perception that news media equals print,” Vanessa Lyons, General Manager of ThinkNewsBrands, said.

“At least half [of news media] is digital in some way, shape or form. The first thing is about re-setting what news is as the world has evolved … Readership is the input, the consumer behaviour, and the output for businesses is putting advertising where audiences are – 97 per cent of the population and 20 million people each month.”

Ractliffe agreed – back in 2015, she said, 25 per cent of all news media ad spend was digital. “Even back then… Now the total of digital as a proportion of total within news media ad spend is at 40 per cent. It’s incorrect to see it as this single silo, it’s this evolved, highly sophisticated, combined media, which also happens to be responsible for providing all the information and basically ensuring democracy, if you ask me.”

Asked when it would be rolled out, Ractliffe said “sometime after Easter”.