BPA Task Force Working to Enable Consumer Magazines to Report Top-Line Circ Data on By-Issue Basis

In response to advertiser demand, a BPA Worldwide task force is working to enable consumer magazine members to report top-line circulation data on a far more timely basis than ever before, BPA President and CEO Glenn Hansen announced today.

“We are aggressively exploring this initiative through a Frequency of Reporting Task Force (FRTF) formed earlier this year, and Advertising Week seems an appropriate time to share this development with the advertising and publishing communities,” said Hansen. “BPA already leads the industry in auditing timeliness—completing well over 90% of our consumer magazine audits within six months of publisher statement filings. We now intend to take this to the next logical level, by enabling consumer magazine members to report top-line circulation data online as frequently as issue-by-issue. In an environment of heightened accountability and heightened advertising competition with both traditional and nontraditional electronic media, publishers need to be able to supply media buyers with metrics in a timeframe that reflects real-world needs and the capabilities of Web-based technology.”

“Top-line” circulation data reported and audited would include numbers of paid and/or non-paid qualified subscription copies and single (“newsstand”) copies, the appropriate subtotals and the overall qualified paid/non-paid total.

Since the start of this year, BPA member newspapers Metro New York, Metro Boston and Metro Philadelphia have been reporting audited top-line circulation data on a monthly basis. These reports (as with the circulation reports for all BPA-audited media) are available at no charge to all in the media-buying and media-selling communities in the “Circulation Statements/Audit Reports” area of the BPA Web site, bpaww.com.

“Clearly, the technology and staff capabilities for reporting audited data online on a greatly accelerated timetable already exist at BPA,” stressed Hansen. “Enabling consumer magazines to step up to the plate is a matter of reaching consensus among publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies on what amount to procedural matters. Given today’s much more sophisticated single-copy sales data exchange capabilities and the existence of data-based models for accounting for credit-based subscriptions, we believe that media buyers and sellers are ready to act in their mutual interests to overcome the procedural obstacles that have too long stood in the way of more timely verified metrics.” 

Publishing executives on the FRTF are developing a reporting model proposal, which will be reviewed by media buyers and advertisers. The working model will then be beta-tested by a group of BPA consumer titles representing a cross-section of publishing frequencies and circulation source mixes. Once available, the more frequent reporting capabilities will be optional for BPA consumer titles while the market response is gauged.

“The marketplace will ultimately determine the desired frequency of reporting for various frequencies and types of publications,” Hansen said. “For example, media buyers may feel that quarterly reporting of data is quite sufficient for some types of magazines, and that by-issue reporting is desirable for others. We will provide the ability, then continue to work with all concerned to hone the system to best serve the industry’s needs. With that accomplished, we’ll turn our attention to reengineerinng the auditing process to produce audits on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than once a year.”