The three firms on the list are GfK: Mediamark Research & Intelligence, Ipsos MediaCT and TNS Australia.

Tony Hale, CEO at The Newspaper Works, said: “All three shortlisted companies have a growing presence in Australia backed by strong credentials, proven expertise and vast resources across their major international research networks.”

Hale said that the trio were chosen from a list of eight companies that applied to the tender and their final submissions will be due at the end of March next year.

“We are very confident,” Hale said, “that the firm that wins the tender will develop a new readership metric of the highest quality for Australia, providing world-class, transparent and accurate readership results that reflect how consumers engage with newspapers.”

Roy Morgan, the company responsible for running the country’s readership study for the past 30 years, was not one of the firms that applied for the new contract, and will continue to produce its survey once The Newspaper Works’ effort is launched.

Meanwhile, one of the country’s largest publishers, Fairfax Media, has reportedly changed its stance and switched from backing The Newspaper Works to Roy Morgan.

The Newspaper Works confirmed that Fairfax “has decided not to participate in the remaining stages of the readership tender”, while reports in local press said that the publisher was now backing the Roy Morgan survey.

The prospect of two readership surveys has split the Australian media industry, with some companies such as ACP Magazines backing Roy Morgan and others, including The Magazine Publishers of Australia and The Media Federation of Australia throwing their weight behind The Newspaper Works.