The Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) has dropped its requirement that publishers need to have a minimum of 70% of their circulation as paid to be a member of the organization.
The change was introduced at the AAM’s board of directors meeting in Toronto last week, after a majority of members voted in favour of its implementation. It means that any Canadian or U.S. newspaper, whether paid or free, print or digital, now qualifies for AAM membership.
AAM board chairman Sunni Boot said that the change reflects the evolving newspaper industry, which sees content distributed via a wide array of paid and free print products as well as tablets, smartphone apps and updated websites.
Ed Strapagiel, a longtime newspaper consultant based in Toronto, said that a decades-long decline in newspaper circulation – which has accelerated in recent years as news moves online – has put pressure on publishers to keep up their numbers.
Publishers have used a variety of strategies to inflate their circulation numbers, including cheap introductory subscriptions and participation in programs such as Newspapers in Education (NIE) – in which newspapers distribute bulk copies to schools for educational purposes. The industry has also long provided hotel operators with newspapers for 1 cent per copy, enough to qualify as paid circulation.
“Paid circulation is meant to convey quality of readership – people want the newspaper so much that they’re willing to pay for it,” said Strapagiel. “Over the years this has been undermined by various tactics.” Recently introduced all-access plans also confuse things further, he said.
Circulation, whether paid or not, is also directly tied to newspapers’ flyer business, which is priced on a cost per thousand basis. Strapagiel said that agencies continue to cling to paid circulation as an “impact yardstick.”
“They may not understand what’s going on behind the numbers and don’t demand better measures from newspapers,” he said.
But Strapagiel said that the rule change is “long overdue” in some ways, since it recognizes the emergence of free commuter dailies such as Metro and 24 Hours. He said that circulation is not as much of a performance benchmark in Canada as it is in the U.S., because NADbank measures readership and online audience through an independent survey.
Strapagiel said the new rules could also help the AAM entice new members.
Globe and Mail publisher and CEO Phillip Crawley said that AAM not only needed to change with the times, but the growth of free papers such as Metro have made it “imperative” that they include non-paid titles.
While Crawley said that the Globe is continuing to reduce bulk circulation, particularly heavily discounted hotel copies, he said he likes the flexibility the new AAM rules allow for counting print and digital subscriptions, including bundles. “I support the changes,” he said. “With the growth of our digital subscriptions, we are happy to be audited this way.”
The AAM, which marks its 100th anniversary in 2014, also announced that it has re-elected 20 directors and elected five new representatives, including TC Media’s Pierre Marcoux to represent Canadian magazines. Boot was also re-elected as chairman, while Rogers Communications’ Shelagh Stoneham was also re-elected as one of four vice-chairmen.
