The origins and birth of the NRS

Prof Harry Henry

A history of readership research in Britain from its pre-war origins, through the Hulton, IIPA and IPA surveys of the 1950s, to the founding and establishment of the National Readership Survey in 1956, substantially as we know it today.

Origins and birth of the NRS

Harry Henry

UK readership research (of one sort or another) dates back to 1924, but the IIPA's 1939 'Survey of Press Readership' in many ways parallels the NRS of today - itself the outcome of the '1954 conspiracy'...

In the course of 1990 the National Readership Survey was the subject of a good deal of acrimonious debate. There was nothing unusual about that: during the seventy years over which readership surveys (or what approximate to readership surveys) have been conducted in this country, they have invariably come in for heated criticism - usually...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands