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BPA Rule Change Addresses Reporting of Non-Request Communications
Other rule changes address direct email requests, digital
reporting, using circ percentages in promotions, NAICS conversion
Stamford CT August 3, 2004 – Under a rules amendment approved by BPA Worldwide's Board of Directors, as of the second-half 2004 reporting period, a multi-title business publisher may now report replies to standardized questionnaires for one of its publications on the circulation report of another of its own publications, under "communication from recipient or recipient's company (other than request)." These communications will "age" based on the qualification date of the original source document. Previously, these sources were reported under "other sources."
Such questionnaires include written, telecommunications and Internet/email requests direct from the recipient, requests from the recipient's company, and communication forms from the recipient or recipient's company. Eligible standardized forms include census forms, editorial surveys and questionnaires that do not include the "yes/no" request question.
Questionnaire replies received from subscribers to a publication owned by a different publishing company must still be reported under "other sources."
Other rules changes approved by the Board, also effective as of the July to December 2004 reporting period:
·Business publishers are no longer required to collect "personal identifier" information on certain incoming email requests.
A personal identifier is a question asked at the time of a request for a controlled subscription (such as high school from which the recipient graduated), whose answer is used in verifying requests.
The new personal identifier exception will apply only to incoming email correspondence that is not generated by a Web qualification form. Web-driven Internet/email requests must still collect personal identifying information. Publishers who employ outgoing campaigns to generate direct email requests must include a notification in their solicitations informing subscribers that they may be contacted by a third party to verify the publication request.
·Digital circulation must now be reported separately within the "five calendar year analysis" table of the BPA business and consumer circulation reports. In addition, if the publisher is reporting paid digital distribution, this circulation must be reported separately from nonpaid digital distribution within this table.
·The business rules have been amended to provide clearer guidance on using percentages when promoting and comparing circulations. A publisher may not promote or report only percentages of either respondents or total qualified circulation. When reporting percentages, the qualified circulation count must also always be disclosed, either as a total, or for each individual category claimed.
·The business rules have been amended, in line with an earlier change to the consumer rules, to allow paid circulation beyond a three-year term or age to be reported as qualified circulation. If a publisher chooses to report such circulation, the "three years" column heading in Paragraph 3b must be changed to read "three+ years," and an explanatory statement of the number of such subscribers must be included in Paragraph 11. This circulation must also be reported as "other paid circulation" within Paragraph 3a. Demographics that are older than three years may not be reported.
·The business rules have been amended to reflect the full conversion from the Standard Industrial Classification System (SIC) to the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), which went into effect with the December 2003 circulation statements.
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