Audit Bureau of Circulations, which provides audited circulation information to media buyers and sellers, just moved even deeper into digital… digital reporting, that is.
An ABC board of directors meeting in Florida last week resulted in what ABC Canada’s vice-president and general manager Joan Brehl described as “a great push forward in all divisions to provide more transparency for buyers and allow publishers to showcase their multimedia brands.”
The organization is moving further towards verifying and reporting cross-media metrics so that the industry can see how readers are engaging with digital as well as print media. Its board of directors has continued movement in three main areas: consumer magazines, newspapers and business publications.
“Buyers want more timely data from more platforms, and publishers want to represent their total brand. We’re working to not only provide that data, but provide it with the transparency that’s necessary for trusted media buying and selling,” said Brehl.
Here is a look at some of the suggested changes from each area:
Consumer magazines
ABC’s board agreed to a new Publisher’s Statement prototype that includes more detail on print and digital magazine subscriptions and single-copy sales. Publishers will have to start reporting key activity metrics, including number of unique browsers/devices, average visit duration and total visits for digital magazines published through tablet apps and web browsers.
Two sections reported in this new statement will focus strictly on digital. Publishers must report net digital circulation by platform type (i.e. apps, web) if digital editions are more than 2% of total circulation and average at least 3,000 copies. Publishers are also required to provide gross numbers of bundled digital magazines by issue and platform.
Several magazine publishers have systems in place to measure their digital activity, and ABC also helps them adapt with the new reporting structure, said Brehl. “It’s a matter of submitting their reports to ABC so that our auditors can verify the information.”
While the board has already endorsed the aforementioned magazine concepts, more formal approval is expected to come at the board’s July meeting.
“Now that the recommendations have been endorsed, the magazine committees will discuss rule language and any other necessary details that come up before the July meeting,” said Brehl. The new report format anticipated to be effective July 1, 2013.
And larger magazines, take note: the board also supports making issue-by-issue magazine reporting via ABC’s Rapid Report tool mandatory beginning Jan. 1, 2013 in order to give the industry access to timely data. The details of said proposal will be evaluated by ABC’s advisory committee before the July meeting.
“Also worth noting,” said Brehl, “is that the [Canadian and U.S. consumer] magazine FAS-FAX report will now include a ‘total digital’ column, which was not previously included.” The total print and digital figure will start with the June 2012 report.
Newspapers
The board discussed plans for cross-media reporting for newspapers. To create more comparable data, several mandatory digital metrics would need to be reported, including those across platforms such as websites and apps. Data would also be reported more often using an integrated online database.
A CMR task force is expected to share its final recommendations to the board in July. “This is a North American group, and directors Ted Boyd of agency 58Ninety, representing buyers, and the National Post‘s Gordon Fisher, representing publishers, represent Canada,” said Brehl.
Canadian and U.S. newspapers would report digital metrics monthly and print metrics quarterly. ABC would audit all categories annually. Many publishers have experience in reporting digital and already have systems in place that track digital activity, said Brehl. “The National Post, for example, reports apps and web traffic on its CMRs.”
The proposed timeline is for Canadian and U.S. newspapers to report these metrics next April, and she said ABC will communicate what will be necessary for reporting digital metrics as plans are solidified.
“At this time, the non-print components will be optional,” said Brehl. “If publishers do, however, report digital, then elements will be mandatory.”
Business publications
“The business publication division now has a new Consolidated Media Report (CMR) format that helps them present their total brands with apps, websites, trade show and social media data,” says Brehl. This report replaces the Multimedia Publisher’s Statement. The CMR for business publications is an optional report format that replaces the traditional Publisher’s Statement.
ABC president and managing director Mike Lavery said in a release that the CMR is meant “to provide comprehensive, verified cross-platform metrics that help to facilitate the buying and selling of media.”
