The Readership Works was launched last year by The Newspaper Works to oversee the tendering and subsequent development of a new print readership metric in the country. Ipsos MediaCT beat off competition from GfK, Mediamark Research & Intelligence and TNS Australia to win the contract.

Dale joins from MediaCom Australia, where he had served as head of digital since 2007, having previously worked at marketing and ad agencies Mitchells Sydney and Carat as managing partner and client service director respectively.

Tony Hale, chairman at The Readership Works, said: “The role of general manager will be pivotal in the development of Australia’s new, state-of-the-art newspaper readership metric, and Mal brings to the position a unique skill set.”

The new metric, when launched, will compete with a similar offering from Roy Morgan Research – which has run its own newspaper readership study in Australia for the past 30 years and will continue to do so.