The move comes two years after NRS hired RSMB to conduct a test fusion of NRS data with data produced by the UKOM/Nielsen online audience measurement system. It aims to help provide the planning, buying and selling communities with a continuous single-source trading and planning currency.

The new dataset will include the website and print readership figures for all the major UK national newspapers and consumer magazines as well as data from over 400 non-publisher websites. Alongside headline readership figures, users will also be able to review unique audience figures for print and online as well as the unduplicated combined net audience, comparisons between age and demographic profile data and an integrated model of reach and frequency for print and online.

In addition to monthly reach, NRS PADD will show weekly and daily reach for websites. It will also show pageviews and dwell time. RSMB will continue to be responsible for the fusion of the two data sources.

The first data published on 10 September will show NRS readership data for the period April 2011 – March 2012 combined with the UKOM data for April 2012. A further two reports will be issued in 2012, in late October and December.

Mike Ironside, chief executive at NRS, said: “This is a huge development not only for NRS but for the industry and being able to provide the industry with combined audience data for print and online for the first time will shape the future of media measurement.”