habits. Accordingly, the design of the media channel strategy requires a rich understanding of the media options and what each type of media can accomplish in terms of audience reach and engagement. Media audience research Media audience research is a central feature of media planning. The main purpose of media research is "to eliminate waste in advertising by objectively analysing the media available for promoting products and services". Identifying and profiling the audience for print media, broadcast media, cinema and online media magazine or newspaper is a specialized form of market research, often conducted on behalf of media owners. In most nations, the advertising industry, via its peak industry associations, endorses a single media research company as the official provider of audience measurement for main media. The methodology used by the official provider then becomes known as the industry currency in audience measurement. Industry members fund the audience research and share the findings. In a few countries, where the industry is more fragmented or where there is no clear peak industry association, two or more competing organisations may provide audience measurement services. In such countries, there is said to be no industry currency. Research companies employ different methodologies depending on where and when media is used and the cost of data collection. All these methods involve sampling – that is taking a representative sample of the population and recording their media usage which is then extrapolated to the general population. Media owners typically share research findings with prospective advertisers, while selected findings are available to the general public via the media research company or an entity, such as a broadcast commission, established to administer the audience research process. Media research acts as form of industry regulation and the legitimacy of research methodologies and provision of audience metrics. Media owners rely on metrics of both audience size and audience quality to set advertising rates. Measures of media audience that are of especial interest to advertisers include: Print Media Circulation: the number of copies of an issue sold (independently assessed via a circulation audit) Readership: the total number of people who have seen or looked into a current edition of the a publication (independently measured via survey) Readership profiles: Demographic/ psychographic and behavioural analysis of readership (sourced from Readership surveys) Broadcast Media Average audience: The average number of people who tuned into the given time or given program, expressed in thousands or