The Audit Bureau of Internet Standards (Abis) has admitted to serious problems and has called for major changes to the bureau, as the much delayed first quarter results finally make their appearance.
The delay has been blamed on systems issues relating to bringing Abis within the day-to-day management of the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC).
Abis chairman Jenny McKinnell used the release of the results to seriously call into question the current operations of the bureau.
"The time has come for major changes within Abis. The organisation as it is currently constituted is not delivering," says McKinnell.
"The industry requires a credible, viable auditing body, with widespread support not only from online publishers, but also from advertisers and marketers.
"There has been a fall in the number of counted members and the number of associate members which are advertising agencies or marketers is disturbingly low."
McKinnell adds that it is clear the honeymoon period is over and the group can no longer function as "a motley band of volunteers and enthusiasts".
In an effort to address the problems, a questionnaire will be sent out to members asking their feelings on a name change to ABC-e and a new committee.
The statistics for the quarter show some surprising results for the bastion sites. Business Day and Financial Mail, both of which fall into the Johnnic e-Venture stable, have seen a page impression drop of 24% and 23% respectively.
The Sunday Times saw no movement in its page impressions, staying static at 1.4 million pages.
M-Web allowed its sites to be monitored individually for the first time as the controversy continues as to whether it will allow non-M-Web dial users access to its sites.
M-Web site, the Daily Mail & Guardian took a knock, losing 2% for the quarter with 2.3 million page impressions, while Supersportzone tumbled to 3.2 million, a drop of 28%.
The independents kept their heads above water with Moneyweb climbing 27%, while niche publisher ITWeb experienced 1% growth to 807 000 page impressions for the quarter.
Defunct Woza had a successful quarter, growing 35% to 5.5 million impressions as the industry holds its breath waiting for an investor to come to the portal`s rescue.
Abis also informed members it will implement the counting of unique visitors, with the third quarter being used as a trial period.
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