Abstract:

My task, then, is to try and talk collectively about the problems of joint sponsored readership surveys on the basis of experience in five different markets, represented by the written papers. I think we might begin by taking a phrase from the Dutch paper which very much summarises what some people feel about joint sponsored surveys: "An inevitable but, we hope, a profitable evil" . 'Evil' in the sense that the sheer task of obtaining cooperation in a survey of this sort can give rise to very real problems, as we shall see, between the co-operating parties; but 'profitable' , we would hope, because in the long run it is better for these co-operating parties to act together than to act separately.