Standard Media Index, publisher of monthly media Agency advertising expenditure data, has today announced changes to its monthly Magazine report to include Digital ad spend attributable to Australia’s major Magazine publishers for the first time.

The move comes as the July SMI data will be the first in which Pacific Magazines has sold its own Digital advertising, enabling like-for-like print-plus-digital comparisons for all Magazine publishers for the first time.

“SMI continually seeks to evolve its reporting in line with market changes, and the Magazine sector has for some time been moving more aggressively into the Digital sphere,” SMI AU/NZ managing director Jane Schulze said.

“The new customised SMI Magazine Report will now better reflect the reality that Magazine publishers are monetising their content not just in print but also in the Digital media.”

In the new report, SMI will show the combined Print and Digital ad spend for each major Magazine publisher (Bauer Media, Pacific Magazines and News Life Media) while also including any Digital ad spend able to be attributed to smaller publishers.

Magazine Networks executive director Mary Ann Azer welcomed the move.

“Australia’s Magazine publishers have invested significant resources in their Digital assets and their Digital sales teams so we are pleased this is now being highlighted in the SMI Magazine report,” she said.

“As with all traditional media, Magazines are starting to reap sizeable revenues from digitising their content as the market welcomes this continued innovation. As such we now consider the Digital divisions of the Magazine businesses to be an integral part of our industry.”

Schulze said the move to update the Magazine report follows similar changes to the SMI Newspaper report last year (in which the publisher’s online revenues were included in the Newspaper report), which was then followed by the creation with NewsMediaWorks of the News Media Index to ensure all Agency and Direct News Media ad spend was being correctly reported.