In September the Canadian Newspaper Advisory Board (CNAB) met to formalize advisory board positions, evaluate proposed rule and reporting changes, and advise CCAB on a new suite of web site traffic and electronic edition measurement tools. Below please find a summary of the discussions…
Proposed Rule Changes:
Educational Copies (formally Newspapers In Education): A new reporting category is proposed for copies served to classrooms, universities, and language programs. The category, “Educational” will be reported in the “Sponsored by third party or free” table.
Promotional Incentives (premiums): A proposed change to the use of promotional incentives will now allow publishers to collect a minimum subscription payment greater than the full value of the promotional incentive. This change aligns the promotional incentive rule with the “paid at any price” definition of paid circulation. Currently, the incentive can not be greater than 50% of the subscription offer price.
Omission Days: The number of omission days, or write off days, is proposed to increase from 10 to 20, annually. It was determined that 10 write off days was not sufficient, especially for papers with significant single copy distribution. It is also proposed that the variance thresholds for determining omission be eliminated. The variance threshold is a legacy rule from when there were no omission day limitations. All omission days and the amount of papers distributed on these days are proposed to be reported on page one of the CCAB report, but will not be included in the calculation of the averages.
Arrears: CCAB rules allow publishers to report a limited number of non-paid credit or arrear subscriptions as paid for 90 days. The CCAB rules did not allow subscriptions sold for less than one year, and less than 50% of base rate, to be included in the allowance. Since most newspaper subscriptions are sold for terms less than one year it is recommended that CCAB eliminate the term and price ceilings.
Sponsored/Third Party Circulation: The advisory board remanded a discussion about sponsored/third party circulation back to the Newspaper Audience Development committee. At issue is the classification of copies purchased by businesses for the benefit of customers, for example, a café which purchases three newspaper subscriptions for their patrons to enjoy reading a newspaper with their meals. CCAB rules for consumer magazine state subscription purchases of 10 copies or less may be reported as paid individual circulation; subscription purchases in lots of 11 or more must be reported as sponsored circulation. The advisory board requests the audience development committee review the consumer rule, report on the size and scope of this type of circulation for the average newspaper publisher, and make a recommendation for newspapers.
Reporting circulation by price points: CCAB currently reports copies by the following price points: sold at 50% of base price or greater; sold at less than 50% base price. The advisory board created a buyer/seller task force to examine how media buyers use the current price point data in the evaluation/buying process. As a result a recommendation is expected to either retain this reporting or eliminate it.
Electronic Editions: Defining electronic editions and determining the report format for electronic editions will be discussed at the next advisory board meeting, November 25th.
Following this meeting the recommendations of the advisory board will be presented to the BPA Worldwide Board of Directors for ratification at the December 10th meeting.
Please take a moment to comment on the above recommendations so we may include your points of view in the decision process.
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