Scout Research will examine questions such as how media consumption translates into advertising inventory, which audience members can be monetised by events or subscriptions, how revenue can be increased beyond advertising and what average revenue per user sites require to reach profitability.

Senior vice president of strategy Matt Shanahan (pictured) said: “In most cases, popular opinion regarding digital disruption and how to respond are wrong when you look through the lens of audience behaviour.

“Our initial research shows that digital revenues are under the most pressure from the unrecoverable loss in ad inventory and not because of online ad prices. New methods for analysing an audience will help publishers avoid guessing and enable them to find monetisable opportunities faster.”