Linguistically assimilated persons speak the language(s) of their residential district in their household or at work/school. Non-linguistically assimilated persons do not speak/understand the language(s) of their residential district.

For WEMF surveys, the following applies in practice: Persons who understand/speak the language of their residential district in the recruitment interview or, in bilingual areas, one of the two languages of their residential district well enough to take part in the survey can participate.

The universe, i.e. the population, is growing by about 6 %. That's a manageable amount. For example, a title with 100,000 readers according to the previous calculation would now have 106,000 readers. If we assume a linear increase of 6 % for each of the more than 250 titles in MACH Basic, this would still be within the confidence interval for 88 % of the titles, which otherwise applies to random fluctuations anyway. However, the universe does not grow linearly in all socio-demographic and geographic segments, so one cannot simply multiply the previous title reaches in thousands by a factor of 1.06 (i.e. plus 6 %) to determine the new values.

Accordingly, the increase caused by this methodological adjustment will not be the same for all titles. However, trial calculations show that extreme differences in the increases are not to be expected.

If the reach in thousands increases by about 6 %, the cost per mille (CPM) decreases slightly by about 6 %. However, this only applies under ceteris paribus conditions, i.e. it only applies if neither the readership in percentage size nor the ad price change compared to the time of comparison. For many titles, however, it can be assumed that the downward trend of the last few years will partially or completely compensate for this adjustment-related one-off increase.

The MACH universe is also regularly adapted to new specifications from the FSO, since the Swiss population continues to grow every year. The growth rate, however, is not that high. That is why WEMF points out transparently in various places that this adjustment changes the extrapolation values (projections). However, the results in percent remain comparable even with a universe adjustment.

The MACH studies are currency data with which the entire media and advertising market works. Therefore, adjustments within the methodology that have an influence on the media values are made in consultation with all market partners. This is especially the case when a pragmatic standard solution has to be found.

After an in-depth examination of the content-related and methodological aspects was conducted by WEMF, the topic was then discussed with the WEMF Research Commission, consisting of experts from publishers, media agencies and academia. This commission unanimously supported such an adjustment of the universe. The WEMF User Commission, which represents data users of publishers, marketers, agencies, and advertising clients, also expressed almost unanimous support.