Frequently Asked Questions

Q. If a publication circulates to the entire universe of a specialty, it is relatively easy to evaluate its effectiveness with a standard AIM efficiency ranking report. What do you do, however, with a journal that only circulates to a portion of a specialty?

A. There are several very easy ways to use PERQ/HCI data to determine if a “niche” journal is valued by its target readers. Here are a few:

Percentage of Frequent or Thorough Readers

• How often and how thoroughly readers read a publication indicates its strength.
• FOCUS clients can calculate frequency of reading by dividing the percentage of 4/4 readers
  by the total readers. (Total readers equal the sum of 1/4, 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 percentages)
• Thoroughness of reading can be picked up directly from the FOCUS Report. Compare
  journals on the “Cover to Cover,” or “Cover to Cover” plus “Read/Look” scores.
• Media-Chek clients can divide High Readers by Total Readers to get a good measure of value.

Circulation Efficiency

• Using either FOCUS or Media-Chek, dividing total readers by receivers provides a good
  measure of circulation efficiency and value.
  Demographics
• Quite often a niche publication has targeted a subset of a specialty based on demographics,
  such as prescribing habits.
• Run an AIM Readership Ranking Report using an Xponent™ prescribing class.
  Capture the ranking report and transfer it to Excel. Divide “Weighted Retail Scripts”
  by “Unweighted Exposures or Readers.”
• Sort the resulting number, “Rxs per Reader/Exposure,” in descending order to see where
  the niche publication ranks. If it is truly reaching high prescribers, it should rank very high.

For any of these measures, calculations should be made across all publications in a market.This lets you evaluate the niche journals against journals with a larger circulation in acomparable way.

Q. What trends do you see in multispecialty journal rates?

A. An analysis of 2005 rates reveals that publishers are holding the line on rate increases again this year. On average, rate increases were 2% over 2004. The ad units used for comparative purposes were a 4-color page in standard publications and a 4-color island page in tabloids, 48/52 frequency.

Of the 54 multispecialty journals included in the average, one-third showed an increase of 3%. Four journals dropped their rates from 2004 levels.

For additional details on this analysis, call 800.243.2702 ext. 278 or e-mail info@perqhci.com.

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