Analysis: How outdated is the NRS?(The National Readership Survey)(Survey)

The National Readership Survey's (NRS) decision not to publish its first set of figures for the London freesheets because of a lack of respondents (MW last week) has called into question the value of the survey.

London is renowned for being a difficult place to carry out surveys, and the NRS's introduction of self-completion forms and #25 incentives have gone some way to increasing the sample size. But thelondonpaper general manager Ian Clark says the response rate remains unacceptably low after the NRS managed to interview just 15 of its readers.

He adds: "NRS needs to increase its use of self-completion questionnaires and urgently consider other …