JIC SURVEYS



JIC

JIC

Introduction JIC

If a publisher wishes to have research results put onto the JICREG Database, the JICREG Secretariat must be informed before the commencement of fieldwork. However, surveys complying with the JICREG Guidelines may be submitted purely for inclusion in the model if the publisher so indicates before the research is conducted; no data would therefore appear on the JICREG Database.

It is extremely important that publishers examine the allocation of circulation or distribution to postcode sectors on the NS Database before the research is commissioned because the area to be researched is based on this entry. The breakdown should total the audited figure but if significant changes have taken place since the last audited figure which better reflects the position of the paper during the anticipated fieldwork period, then this breakdown should be submitted to the consultant at JICREG responsible for the design of research areas (not the NS). The circulation allocation covering the audit period encompassing the fieldwork period should reflect this more recent breakdown (when it becomes available).

As far as possible, copies should be allocated to the postcode sectors where readers live rather than where copies are sold. In many cases, this will be the same, but, particularly in the centre of towns and cities, it may be quite different. 'A Guide to Circulation Allocation' is available to be downloaded from the JICREG website to assist.

Note that if the circulation or distribution of editions is not allocated to postcode sectors correctly, there will be a mismatch between circulation and readership resulting in inaccurate readers-per-copy figures.

Publishers submitting research to JICREG thereby accept that such readership data may be used (unattributably) as part of input data for any readership modelling process that JICREG may carry out from time to time. By being included on the JICREG Database, a publisher is also accepting that his masthead may be used in research conducted by a competitor.

JICREG reserves the right to amend these Guidelines at any time and without warning, as necessary. JICREG also reserves the right to publish or to omit data for any newspaper on its data system without condition.

Newspaper research may be carried out for many purposes - to assist with editorial policy, to examine newsagent attitudes, or to test the effectiveness of promotions, for example, but JICREG has no concern with these. It is interested solely in the accurate measurement of the readership for a newspaper and the nature of that readership (in terms of demographics and time spent reading). Newspapers will frequently wish to add many other questions and, providing these come after the "JICREG required questions", it is of no concern of JICREG (with the exception of demographics which should come at the end).

Any publisher is free, of course, to use any methodology, any contractor and ask any questions he chooses in his own research, but because the Technical Subcommittee of JICREG needs to establish clear guidelines for newspapers wishing to have their individually commissioned surveys included in JICREG, any deviation from the Guidelines will cause ...