Audit bureau plans rapid rethink of circulation rules
Australia’s Audit Bureau of Circulations is setting up a committee tasked with delivering a rapid review of its rules for what can be counted as a paid sale following questions over newspapers in Melbourne and Sydney.
The ABC’s AGM was told this morning that the rule review sub-committee will meet for the first time in the first half of next month. It is likely that the group, which will have its remit set by the ABC’s general committee, will meet on a weekly basis in a bid to rapidly review and if necessary amend the rules.
The ABC is currently conducting three circulation investigations. One is into The Age after Crikey published a leaked email that suggested advertisers did not have a clear picture of the fairfax paper’s circulation. Also, in Melbourne the ABC is looking at News Ltd’s Herald & Weekly Times group after issues raised by former editor Bruce Guthrie in his new book. And in Sydney, the ABC is looking into unread copies of Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald discovered by Mumbrella at the University of Sydney.
Among the options that the ABC will consider is the creation of further “buckets” so that advertisers have greater transparency over different types of circulation, including potentially breaking out full price copies. At present it is impossible to tell how many buyers have purchased full price copies compared to how many sales are bargain basement susbcriptions that may not even be picked up every day by a susbcriber.
The last time the rules were reviewed was in 2006.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I’ll save them all a lot of time. Give us circation by unit price. Of course the publishers won’t want that, but why?
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I do not think it matters to advertisers what the price paid for the copy was but whether the copy is being read.
However what disturbs me as when ever they change the rules we lose comparisons on previous years.
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We are always given a free copy of the Saturday SMH when we shop at Franklins at St Martins Village in Blacktown (ie. a location west of Harris Street).
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What are the rules for counting papers that are returned to the publishers through news agents and the like? Are they subtracted from the circ figures?
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Robert, ABC Average Net Paid Sales (circulation) do not include the returns from news agents and other retail outlets.
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