The first uniform audited data on digital “circulation” for newspapers and magazines in Australia will be out by the end of the year, in an effort to catch up with other areas of the world, The Australian reported.

“We need to be relevant to what is happening in the industry,” said Gordon Towell, chief of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, according to The Australian. “There are massive changes going on and delivery of content through web and digital media is becoming increasingly important. From a media buyer's and an advertiser's point of view it is critical that some sanity be brought to web measurement.”

Although media groups currently get online figures from research houses like Nielsen, Google Analytics and the Internet Advertising Bureau, “non of it is public, none of it is comparative, non of it is done in an audited way,” Towell told The Australian.

The lack of an industry standard means “cowboys out there (are) making the wildest of wild claims on what their Web sites are doing,” he said.

Without a standard measurement system, advertisers have been unable to ensure their campaigns are reaching the number of people they hope they are, and have no way of knowing if they've invested their ad dollars wisely, The Australian reported.

ABC will release its audited online data along with its print audit figures.