21/02-11   -   Press releases

The National Magazine Company – Prima

Following the National Magazine Company press release of 17th February, ABC has made the following statement.

During the last audit period, following a consultation with the National Magazine Company, ABC ruled that multi-packed copies of the September issue of Prima did not meet the requirements to be eligible for inclusion in its ABC circulation claim for the period July-December 2010.

The decision was taken fairly in accordance with the rules agreed by the industry, reviewed through the established ABC appeals procedure and was upheld at each stage, finally and unanimously by a panel of industry representatives. The July-December ABC figure of 268,421 is not, therefore, ‘incorrect’ as NatMags state, but represents the circulation figure compliant with ABC’s Reporting Standards, which are open, transparent and provide comparability across publications. Any copies sold or distributed by the publisher that are not compliant must be disqualified from the copies claimed. (Although the multi-packed copies were not eligible for the ABC claim because the pricing of the multi-pack was not compliant with the rules, ABC has no reason to believe these copies were not distributed or sold.)

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About ABC
Owned by the media industry, ABC independently verifies and reports on media performance providing a stamp of trust for media buyers and owners across print, events, digital and evolving platforms.

The ABC Board consists of 16 media owner, agency, advertiser and trade body representatives who make strategic decisions as to how ABC and ABCe is run. In addition each sector of the industry is represented by a Reporting Standard Group. These agency, advertiser and media owner representatives agree the ABC Reporting Standards to ensure the needs of the media industry are met.

JICWEBS www.jicwebs.org is the Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards. This industry-owned organisation meets 4 times a year to provide credibility, comparability and transparency by agreeing census standards for digital media. ABCe then audits to these industry-agreed standards. Representatives on JICWEBS encompass all areas of the industry including advertisers, agencies and media owners from the following trade bodies: IPA, IPA digital, ISBA, AOP, IAB, NS, NPA.

ABC was first established in the UK in 1931, is a founder member of the International Federation of ABC’s (IFABC), and is one of the largest media auditing bodies in the world. ABCe was established in 1996 and works to deliver common international standards for digital media measurement via its role as chair of the IFABC web standards group. www.ifabc.org

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