TASK FORCE TO CONSIDER UNION OF NEWSPAPER GROUPS
By Adnews Staff
The Newspaper Marketing Bureau and the Canadian Daily Newspaper Association are setting up a task force to determine if the two organizations should be merged and, if so, how. If it decides merging is not a good idea, the task force will look at ways the NMB and CDNA can be individually revamped. Its final recommendation is due in early 1996. If a united body is to be formed, the task force will start looking for a leader to help shape the new organization he or she will preside over. This exercise is more for the benefit of member newspapers rather than for advertisers. The groups feel that the annual NADbank study already provides advertisers and agencies with good information about daily newspaper readers, and that organizers are well on the road to bringing desired improvements to the study. There are two basic reasons for striking the task force, a media conference was told this week by Kevin Peterson, chairman of both the CDNA and the steering committee. Members want a strong body to lobby regulatory and government agencies to help keep newspapers competitive with cable and telephone companies as they go into the electronic information age. They would also like NADbank to be "the most credible instrument of research in the country..." Potential cost savings are also a factor, said Tom Keane, managing director of of the Media Consulting Group, a division of Toronto-based Genesis Media. The task force was formed in response to a survey of 232 CDNA and NMB members, conducted during the summer by the Media Consulting Group. The NMB, which promotes the daily newspaper as a national advertising medium and administers NADbank, has 47 member papers. Its annual operating budget is $2 million, on top of the one million for NADbank. The CDNA, with an annual budget of $1.6 million, has 84 members. It is the lobbying voice for dailies and also provides support services and editorial training.