Three-quarters of EBA member companies’ communications professionals expect to be notified of important media coverage within an hour, while one in three learnt of negative coverage outside their monitoring system

19/ 10/ 2026

These are the findings of a survey conducted by the European Business Association’s Marketing and Communications Committee on real-time media monitoring practices. Speed is a requirement, not a preference. 79% of respondents consider real-time media monitoring critical to their company’s day-to-day operations. 45% expect to be notified of important coverage within 15 minutes of publication, while 73% expect to receive an alert within an hour. Three in four respondents check monitoring results at least daily, and 41% do so continuously throughout the working day. The cost of delays. Over the past 12 months, 30% of survey participants learnt about negative coverage from management, a client or a partner rather than through their monitoring system. At 14% of companies, the material had already been republished by other outlets before the company could respond. Media alerts as the primary use case. Half of respondents primarily use monitoring as a real-time alert system for new mentions of their company, brands or executives. Another 41% use it to conduct comprehensive assessments of PR campaigns, reputation and competitors, while only 7% use it to analyse periodic performance metrics. Priorities when selecting a monitoring system reflect these needs: 48% rank alert speed and ease of use first, 38% prioritise source coverage and analytical capabilities, and 10% focus on the relevance of results. Demand for speed, but no metric to measure it. Despite the fact that the vast majority of respondents expect to receive information within an hour, only 31% regularly measure how quickly important coverage is detected. This ranks last among the ten metrics tracked by companies. The most commonly measured indicators are the number of publications and mentions (97%), sentiment (83%) and share of voice compared with competitors (72%). Tools. The most widely used specialised real-time media monitoring system among the companies surveyed is MediaMonitoringBot, used by 72% of respondents. LOOQME is used by 41%, YouScan by 24% and Semantrum by 10%. At the same time, 72% of companies also conduct manual searches, while 52% use Google Alerts. Overall, 72% of companies pay for their primary monitoring system. In terms of unaided brand awareness, LOOQME was most frequently named first (45%), followed by MediaMonitoringBot (31%). A further 7% of respondents mentioned a ‘media monitoring Telegram bot’ without specifying a brand. Percentages are calculated across all respondents (n=29). The ‘Primary tool’ column shows the share of respondents who identified a system as their primary tool; four respondents did not specify a primary system. ‘Real-time media monitoring is not simply a tool for tracking mentions; it is an important component of reputation management and communications risk management for businesses. Our survey findings reveal a certain paradox: companies expect to receive information as quickly as possible, yet far from all of them measure the speed of detection or assess its impact on communications effectiveness. Managing reputation through daily data, analytics and timely decisions is a sign of a mature business communications function,’ says Natalia Ulynets, Chair of the EBA Marketing and Communications Committee. Methodology. The survey was conducted by the European Business Association’s Marketing and Communications Committee in August–September 2026. It involved 29 communications professionals from the Association’s member companies.

These are the findings of a survey conducted by the European Business Association’s Marketing and Communications Committee on real-time media monitoring practices.

Speed is a requirement, not a preference. 79% of respondents consider real-time media monitoring critical to their company’s day-to-day operations. 45% expect to be notified of important coverage within 15 minutes of publication, while 73% expect to receive an alert within an hour. Three in four respondents check monitoring results at least daily, and 41% do so continuously throughout the working day.

The cost of delays. Over the past 12 months, 30% of survey participants learnt about negative coverage from management, a client or a partner rather than through their monitoring system. At 14% of companies, the material had already been republished by other outlets before the company could respond.

Media alerts as the primary use case. Half of respondents primarily use monitoring as a real-time alert system for new mentions of their company, brands or executives. Another 41% use it to conduct comprehensive assessments of PR campaigns, reputation and competitors, while only 7% use it to analyse periodic performance metrics.

Priorities when selecting a monitoring system reflect these needs: 48% rank alert speed and ease of use first, 38% prioritise source coverage and analytical capabilities, and 10% focus on the relevance of results.

Demand for speed, but no metric to measure it. Despite the fact that the vast majority of respondents expect to receive information within an hour, only 31% regularly measure how quickly important coverage is detected. This ranks last among the ten metrics tracked by companies. The most commonly measured indicators are the number of publications and mentions (97%), sentiment (83%) and share of voice compared with competitors (72%).

Tools. The most widely used specialised real-time media monitoring system among the companies surveyed is MediaMonitoringBot, used by 72% of respondents. LOOQME is used by 41%, YouScan by 24% and Semantrum by 10%. At the same time, 72% of companies also conduct manual searches, while 52% use Google Alerts. Overall, 72% of companies pay for their primary monitoring system.

In terms of unaided brand awareness, LOOQME was most frequently named first (45%), followed by MediaMonitoringBot (31%). A further 7% of respondents mentioned a ‘media monitoring Telegram bot’ without specifying a brand.

Percentages are calculated across all respondents (n=29). The ‘Primary tool’ column shows the share of respondents who identified a system as their primary tool; four respondents did not specify a primary system.

‘Real-time media monitoring is not simply a tool for tracking mentions; it is an important component of reputation management and communications risk management for businesses. Our survey findings reveal a certain paradox: companies expect to receive information as quickly as possible, yet far from all of them measure the speed of detection or assess its impact on communications effectiveness. Managing reputation through daily data, analytics and timely decisions is a sign of a mature business communications function,’ says Natalia Ulynets, Chair of the EBA Marketing and Communications Committee.

Methodology. The survey was conducted by the European Business Association’s Marketing and Communications Committee in August–September 2026. It involved 29 communications professionals from the Association’s member companies.