Times For Change At ABC
News International has fired the latest round in the dispute between The Times and The Telegraph and the ABC *Telegraph Issue Writ To ABC. NI has published a list of reforms it would like to see to the ABC system.
In the statement, NI claims: “The integrity of the ABC figures has come increasingly into question over the last few months. To understand why this has happened you need to know how publishers can disguise their true circulation figures by hiding what really happens in the market place.”
According to NI, these figures remain concealed because ABC figures fail to show when circulation, “is being propped up by short-term price cuts, cheap subscriptions or covert discounting activity”. The document continues: “ABC figures should be about showing the underlying health of a title’s circulation performance.” NI feel that advertisers are losing an important piece of information regarding the fragility of those sales and the way in which those copies are read.
Unable to resist bringing up the old Telegraph/Times conflict, the statement goes on: “Certain publishers are including some lesser rate sales as full rate. One example is the way that The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph include in their full rate sales all copies sold under their heavily discounted advance payment scheme.” NI wants these sales classified as sales at a lesser rate. NI feel especially aggrieved by this because ABC instructed sales of The Times, under a similar scheme, to be classed as sales of a lesser rate. NI calls for the ABC rules to be changed so that the distinction between full and lesser rate sales is clearly defined. It is also demanding that bulk sales be excluded from the headline figure. “This is the only way to ensure that the figures are a true reflection of consumer demand for a title and hence a true measure of the likelihood of a paper being read. Publishers who wish to continue to arrange bulk sales for marketing purposes should be free to do so, but they should not use them to give an artificial impression of their true circulation figure.”
NI fail to mention that The Telegraph has previously asked the ABC to not classify the Monday edition of The Times, which is sold for 10p, as a full sale. The ABC rejected the complaint.
Finally, NI believes that except for certain predetermined days, such as bank holidays, there should be no exlusion days. This refers to when a particular issue of a newspaper is allowed to be exluded from the ABC averages if, through circumstances beyond the publishers control, either the distribution falls materially short of its planned level or there is a sales shortfall due to distribution delays. NI argues: “There is a real case for believing that some publishers are abusing the exclusion day privilidge, claiming production stoppages or late delivery when in fact such problems, when investigated, turn out never to have existed. In effect it allows the publisher to cherry-pick only his best circulation days.”
News International: 0171 437 6474