FAQs Archive

FAQs

PAMCo data new methodology 2025

Having followed an 'online-first' approach since 2020 as a result of Covid restrictions, PAMCo has been looking to evolve the measurement of published media (news and magazine media) to ensure a robust sample that can support our evolving industry.

Shared data collection with Barb will enhance the quality, efficiency, and reliability of our audience measurement. By using Barb’s high-quality Establishment Survey, we can achieve a more balanced and representative sample, which will deliver high quality data and benefit advertisers and their agencies.

Technical data evaluation has shown that face-to-face data collection works much better for published media allowing us to have a more representative, well-balanced sample, be future ready and continue to deliver high quality data to the industry.
Collaborating with Barb on data collection allows PAMCo to embrace a predominantly face-to-face methodology. Data will be collected from households participating in Barb’s establishment survey, with up to two members from each household invited to participate in the PAMCo survey.

A small number of interviews will be collected via online completion, in situations where the informant is willing to participate in the PAMCo survey but is unable to do so when the interviewer is in the home, or where the informant is someone other than the Barb respondent and is not available at the time of the interview.

Between January and June 2025, 80% of responses were collected through face-to-face interviews, and 20% were collected through online completion. This represents a significant difference from the previous method, where 67% of the responses were obtained through online completion.
Since the PAMCo module follows Barb’s Establishment Survey, it was essential to balance the combined effort asked of respondents to maximise response rates and ensure high-quality data.

The PAMCo questionnaire now prioritises essential readership questions, plus those enabling fusion with Ipsos iris digital data and IPA’s Touchpoints.

Topics of interest will still be collected and published, and demographic details now align with Barb’s Establishment Survey.
Any change in methodology affects results. The new predominantly face-to-face approach should yield a more representative sample of readers and non-readers, with a stronger demographic balance, particularly in social grading.

The new methodology reduces self-selection bias: interviewers build rapport during the Barb survey, encouraging participation from a broader pool, and existing demographic data enable oversampling of hard-to-reach groups, resulting in a well-balanced sample.

The methodology change does not impact PAMCO's digital figures, which will continue to be sourced from UKOM endorsed Ipsos iris.

It is crucial to note that data trending will not be possible until the first half of 2027, when all releases use the new method.
As we transition to the new methodology, PAMCo will use data from the new and old methods up until the March 2027 release. 

** It is important to note that during this period, data trending will not be possible **

The first release to include any new method data will be H2 2025, incorporating six months of data collected under the new approach.

Full roll out of the new methodology will occur with the H1 2027 release, which will be based entirely on new method data. Data from here on will be fully trendable.
All PAMCo releases that are based on a blended approach will be flagged in the data bureaux interfaces as new method*.

The first release with data based on both the online-first methodology and the new methodology will be ‘PAMCo H2 2025 Jun’23 – Jun’25 (Jun’25 Ipsos iris) new method 1*’

The first release in 2026 will be ' PAMCo H1 2026 Dec’23 – Dec’25 (Nov’25 Ipsos iris) new method 2*'.

The last release with blended data will be 'PAMCo H2 2026 Jun’24 – Jun’26 (Jun’26 Ipsos iris) new method 3*’.

On the page will be a reminder:

*Until the new methodology is fully integrated in trending is not possible.

Introduction and Overview

PAMCo’s methodology integrates digital audience figures supplied by Ipsos iris with print readership and demographic data from a high-quality survey of 15,000 participants per year.

Data is collected primarily face-to-face by interviewing a selected sample of Barb’s Establishment survey respondents, with up to two members from each household invited to participate in the PAMCo survey.

A small number of interviews will be collected via online completion, in situations where the informant is willing to participate in the PAMCo survey but is unable to do so when the interviewer is in the home, or where the informant is someone other than the Barb respondent and is not available at the time of the interview.
You can access PAMCo data in 3 different ways:

Topline audience figures are available through the PAMCo subscriber website
More detailed analysis can be carried out through computer planning bureaux, such as Kantar Media, Nielsen IMS, TelmarHelixa, as well as AdWanted and Touchpoints.

There is also an opportunity to obtain direct access to respondent-level data to feed into publisher and agency proprietary tools. Please contact info@pamco.co.uk for more information.

PAMCo: the latest Joint Industry Currency

Publishers Audience Measurement Company (PAMCo) is the Joint Industry Currency (JIC) for published media, using approved world leading methodology. It produces de-duplicated brand reach allowing users to carry out reach & frequency planning to better commercialise audiences across all platforms.

Our funding stakeholders are Newsworks (representing Newsbrands), Professional Publishers Association (PPA - Magazine Media) and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA - Advertising Agencies). The Board also has representation from The Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA).

How it all works

To reflect the reality that many readers now read across both print and digital platforms and so a questionnaire which focuses on print reading and asks about digital reading separately is no longer appropriate. To reduce the potential for confusion between print and digital reading (and possible over-claims for print). To collect claimed readership data for all publisher brands which is then used to provide ‘links’ for the fusion with Ipsos iris digital audience figures. Claimed digital reading is very different from Ipsos iris figures, and usually lower, not least because participants will not usually remember all the sites they have visited. There is no intention of publishing the claimed digital behaviour, but it helps to have these data in the background for the data integration process.
PAMCo incorporates Ipsos iris figures for digital platforms, rather than issue its own figures because Published media wish to have a level playing field with all other digital brands in the market. Buyers have told PAMCo this is critical to enable like for like comparisons and it would be unhelpful for PAMCo to release a different and conflicting set of numbers to those issued by the UKOM approved supplier and de facto industry currency.

For information on Ipsos iris methodology for measuring digital audiences please contact support@ipsosiris.com
In essence, data integration (also known as fusion) transfers audience figures based on participants in one dataset to participants in another dataset so that there is a combined dataset that represents the data contained in both, as well as the relationships between variables from different datasets.

In order to do this, the fusion finds the best possible matches between participants in the two datasets in respect of their demographics and behaviour.

For more information on the fusion between PAMCo and Ipsos iris click here.
The data integration procedure is designed to match Ipsos iris published figures as closely as possible.

Users will, however, notice some differences. Ipsos must align the Ipsos iris and PAMCo universes, as there are some differences (notably that Ipsos iris includes Northern Ireland). While the PAMCo survey data is completely preserved by the fusion process, the Ipsos iris data is slightly distorted but is almost always within +/-5% of the original GB part of the currency at the Total Digital level for monthly audiences.

The profile of the monthly digital audiences will match the Ipsos iris data in respect of age band, gender and grouped regions but will not match for other variables, as demographic data from the Ipsos iris data has been replaced with the demographic data of the fused PAMCo survey participants. As most variables present in the two datasets will not have been exactly matched at the most detailed level, differences in profile will be observed.
Participants are offered an incentive for completing a questionnaire. This is given in the form of an Amazon or Love2Shop voucher (the latter can be used in numerous high street stores). Alternatively, the participant can opt to donate the sum to a choice of three charities.

From March 2025, the new PAMCo method offers heightened incentives for ages 16-24, where it can be more challenging to get a response.

What’s included in the dataset?

Aggregated entities are groups of brands that are normally planned and sold as a package. PAMCo has provided audience figures for aggregated titles for many years. Going forward it is expected that publishers either individually or collectively will create more aggregated entities which they would like to produce cross platform figures for. This is a trend across the wider media market, and is welcomed by agency and advertiser customers who often wish to plan and trade audiences in this way.

PAMCo currently reports aggregated entity figures for The National and Big City.

For rules about inclusion of aggregated entities in PAMCo please click here.
Ipsos iris can include measurements for some of these platforms, currently FBIA, Google AMP and Apple News. Depending on platform, this may require publishers to make the necessary arrangements with Ipsos and have appropriate tagging in place. Traffic via these platforms will be included in their overall digital figures within PAMCo. Breaking out distributed content figures within the PAMCo dataset will be possible only if the relevant publishers agree to make the breakdown public in the Ipsos iris dataset.
‘Page views’ is one of the standard metrics that PAMCo has been incorporating for digital entities. However, since the launch of PAMCo, we have been assigning page views to any digital apps reported by PAMCo based on duration, as there are no page views for mobile apps in the UKOM endorsed data (currently Ipsos iris, previously Comscore). This has been necessary in order to:
- Make digital apps available for R&F planning (as the algorithm works with page views for digital entities)
- Ensure that there is no audience reach without page views in the PAMCo database
  The formula being used for apps is an allowance of one page view per 30 seconds duration (i.e. 2 page views per minute).
As Ipsos iris allows to break out audiences of distributed content but does not report page views for these entities, it has been necessary to allocate page views to distributed content (currently Apple News only) since Ipsos iris become the source of PAMCo’s digital figures. During the Bridge period page views were allocated to distributed content in the same way as for all other apps (i.e. 2 page views per minute).

Following a request from stakeholders for greater accuracy and transparency in this part of the audience, aggregated Article Views data supplied by Apple were used to work out a proxy at sector level. From the PAMCo 2 2022 release the following averages have been used to allocate page views to distributed content:
- 1 article view per minute for all newsbrands
- 1.25 article views per minute for all magazines.
These factors will be reviewed annually.

The key measure of print readership is known as Average Issue Readership or AIR. AIR is the number of people who have read or looked at an average issue of a publication. The definition is based on those who say they have last read a publication within its publication interval, i.e.:

Daily newsbrands	Read yesterday
Sunday newsbrands	Read in the last 7 days
Weekly magazines	Read in the last 7 days
Fortnightly magazines	Read in the last 2 weeks
Monthly magazines	Read in the last month
Bi-monthly	Read in the last 2 months
Quarterly	Read in the last 3 months

For daily newsbrands AIR is available for Saturday editions, as well as a figure for the 5-day weekday edition, and an overall 6-day figure.

The data incorporated from Ipsos iris are:

Daily, weekly and monthly reach (Unique Visitors) by platform Page views by platform Time spent by platform Content sections for the newsbrands. It will be possible to analyse these digital sections individually and by 11 content categories: News, Homepage, Sport, Lifestyle, Arts & Entertainments, Personal Finance, Business, Science & Technology, Travel, Jobs/Careers, and Motors.

Using PAMCo in the data bureaux

There will be a code for the various digital platforms in combination (as well as codes for each of the individual platforms separately). However, as the method of planning print is by insertions and for digital is by page views, it is not possible to combine the two into a single code. Print and digital can be planned in combination in the same schedule, using the separate codes provided for each.
No, this is not advisable. At the moment the reach and frequency planning facilities within the bureaux assume that if there is more than one insertion in a publication, that these are placed in different editions. The calculations would be misleading if the intention was that the insertions appeared in the same edition, as reach would be overstated. PAMCo will be working with Ipsos and the bureaux to see if it is possible to develop a facility specifically for this type of analysis.

Accessing PAMCo – Audience Measurement for Publishers data

he topline data are posted on the PAMCo website subscriber section. PAMCo & Ipsos iris subscribers have access to the full PAMCo database via one of the computer bureaux (Kantar Media, Nielsen IMS, TelmarHelixa, AdWanted) licensed by PAMCo to provide a data analysis service.

It is also possible to obtain direct access to respondent-level data to feed into your own planning tools. Please contact PAMCo to find out how to do this.

To access the full PAMCo dataset you must subscribe to both PAMCo and Ipsos iris, which is the current UKOM approved supplier of digital audience figures.
Any publisher-owned print or digital brand is welcome to apply to have their brand included in PAMCo. For digital brands this is the case, even if there is no corresponding print brand, or the print brand does not have a readership figure published.

For print publications the key consideration is that display advertising is carried. Publications which are not normally covered are:

Titles carrying only classified advertising, or not carrying advertising at all Trade, business or professional titles, or special-interest titles whose readers are unlikely to be properly represented in the sample. Titles aimed primarily at children (aged 14 or under). Titles appearing less often than quarterly, or titles which appear irregularly

There is no minimum circulation requirement for print publications, but a publication must achieve a minimum sample before any data can be released. Click here to see the PAMCo Rules for Measurement and click here to see PAMCo Publication rules.
Publishers who are members of either Newsworks or the PPA and who wish make changes to their brands that are currently measured on PAMCo should let PAMCo and their respective industry bodies know.

Any changes required to print and/or digital brands included in PAMCo can be requested by publishers when the list of PAMCo entities is circulated by industry bodies on a six monthly basis. With regard to digital brands in particular, it is the publisher’s responsibility to inform PAMCo of any changes made to the Ipsos iris Dictionary that have an impact on the entities reported by PAMCo.
Ipsos iris requires tags to be added to any websites that publishers want to be monitored. Tags from previous suppliers will not be automatically replaced. After a publisher places their tag, they should inform Ipsos to verify if the tags are running properly. As a second step, Ipsos will check if this is the case and verify on their end with the publisher that the tag is working. For mobile apps a software development kit (SDK) will be available and should be incorporated to ensure coverage of app traffic is also included.

	Data Period	Release Date	Embargoed Until
PAMCo H2 2025	June 2023 – June 2025 (June 2025 Ipsos iris data)	24th September 2025	00.01 1st October 2025
PAMCo H1 2026	December 2023 – December 2025 (November 2025 Ipsos iris data)	Spring 2026 (TBC)	Spring 2026 (TBC)

FAQs

PAMCo data new methodology 2025

Introduction and Overview

PAMCo: the latest Joint Industry Currency

How it all works

What’s included in the dataset?

Using PAMCo in the data bureaux

Accessing PAMCo – Audience Measurement for Publishers data

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