About

The PRC meets the needs of fast changing consumer behaviour with Gold Standard reader audience measurement, founded on global and local best-in-class practice, expertise and resources.

The Publisher Research Council (PRC) is a South African non-profit Joint Industry Council (JIC). It is funded by its member stakeholders, who are active in the print and digital publishing and advertising sectors.

The PRC produces relevant, accurate and useful research that guides advertising media decision-making for agencies and marketers.

Amongst its research products is the biennial Publisher Audience Measurement Survey (PAMS), which is a primary reading currency, designed to achieve an accurate measurement of reading behaviour across multiple platforms.

Another key product is the innovative FUSION research that combines, or fuses, data from different studies at a respondent level to provide richer, deeper consumer insights for more appropriate media advertising decision-making.

Socio-Economic Measure (SEM) is a product that depicts how South Africans live based on what they have access to in and near their homes. (Try the handy PRC SEM Calculator tool here to experience how it works.)

The PRC is at the forefront of media research in South Africa, with innovations such as readership flooding, fusion, multi-method currencies, income weighting and oversampling, geo-segmentation, automated planning tools and Media Imperatives and is firmly committed to delivering the most accurate and representative reader data to its advertising and media stakeholders.

The PRC provides more accurate, insightful research for improved media decision-making.

The PRC provides innovative “Gold Standard” Reader Audience Measurement founded on global and local best-in-class practice, expertise and resources. We conduct large scale, representative audience and reading efficacy research on behalf of our members. This data is provided to bureaux who in turn supply media planning and crosstab software to media agencies and advertisers to inform effective advertising investment.

In 2017, we conducted six studies with over 76 000 respondents.

In 2018, we pioneered media research FUSION in South Africa.

In 2019 we fused the first PAMS with Nielsen’s Digital Study and Consumer Panel Services to deliver PAMS Brands People, Products and Platforms.

In April 2020 we released PAMS2019.

In November 2020, in partnership with the BRC and Nielsen, we released the 4-way multi FUSION2020 (PAMS, TAMS, CPS, DCS).

With more to follow – WATCH THIS SPACE for further ground breaking multi-fusion studies.

• Commission and co-ordinate research which is required by, or is relevant to, the advertising, marketing and media industries.
• Commission, develop and provide an accepted cross platform readership currency research for the use of the advertising, marketing and media industries.
• Facilitate the incorporation of audited circulation data so that this metric can be synchronised with the readership panel measurement.
• Promote and maintain fair, reasonable and proper standards of audience research for printed and digitally published media.
• Foster and maintain innovation in research development.
• Support and foster additional collaborative media industry-wide research.
• Advance relationships and collaborate with other industry bodies to develop cross platform media research, including but not limited to IAB, BRC, MMA, AIP, MASA, AMF, ABC and ACA
• Expand membership and utilise contributions to fund ongoing media industry research.
• Educate the media planning and buying industry in respect of the utilisation of the findings of the research and the value and role of printed and digitally published media formats.
• Develop and collate case studies, articles and white papers demonstrating the value of print and digitally published media.