Two auditors of newspaper and magazine readership, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and the National Readership Survey (NRS), will appoint a joint chief executive, and will meet next month to decide whether to merge, Brand Republic reported Tuesday.

Appointing a joint chief is one of several steps toward merging in the long term that ABC and NRS are considering, such as merging their public relations operations. However, it is not an understanding that the two bodies will combine their offerings of data for media planners and buyers.

ABC Chief Executive Chris Boyd and NRS Managing Director Roger Pratt are both scheduled to step down from their positions later this year, Brand Republic reported.

Media buyers have criticised the merger idea. One buyer told Brand Republic anonymously (the news service did not specify why the source's name was not given) that “NRS is an important tool, but it still suffers from recording wild fluctuations and is not very robust. I don't see how the appointment of a joint chief executive will change anything.”