The bureau said today that the work being carried out with Nielsen by its measurement committee was “well advanced”.

It has appointed Gai Le Roy as programmes manager for its measurement, research and standards and guidelines committees. The organisation also has a new chairman in the form of Nic Cola (pictured), chief operating officer of Fairfax Digital. Le Roy was previously insights manager at NineMSN.

The hybrid solution will combine panel-based measurement (which is able to directly measure people, rather than just computers or browsers, but which struggles to estimate the audiences of smaller sites) and server-based measurement (which is better able to measure the ‘long tail’, but gives a less accurate picture of individual user behaviour).

In 2007 the IAB said it would only be accrediting panel-based systems in the “immediate future”, prompting Nielsen to highlight the value of hybrid solutions.

In the US, ComScore has also championed a “panel-centric hybrid” approach, criticising some audience measurement firms whose counts rely predominantly on server data.

IAB Australia recently published draft metric guidelines stating that panel-based measurement is the only acceptable basis for website reach figures, and setting out definitions to clarify the distinctions between panel and server-based numbers.