Buyers Scrutinize Mag Distribution w/Changes in Verified Circ

The Audit Bureau of Circulations has begun requiring that public-place-sponsored copies of magazines be reclassified as such, giving print media buyers more transparency into where and how a magazine is distributed.

Beginning in January 2008, the ABC required publishers to report public-place-sponsored copies within the relatively new category of verified circ, writes Mediaweek. The new category was created to meet media buyers’ demands that publishers be more transparent when it comes to the magazines they distribute for free or nearly free.

The number of sponsored copies distributed relative to the total number of magazines is small. In the second half of last year, sponsored copies represented 2.7 percent of total circ, or 9.8 million copies, while verified circ represented 3.8 percent of circulation, or 13.6 million copies, according to the ABC.

But since publishers have been required to include sponsored copies in the verified circ category, numbers in that category have soared. Good Housekeeping’s verified circ went from an average of 144,491 to 225,000 since the change in reporting requirements. Golf Digest’s verified circ category more than doubled in the first three issues of 2008, while Maxim’s verified circ jumped from 48,141 to more than 200,000.

Media buyers complain that some publishers use verified circ to make up for shortfalls in their rate base and say that verified doesn’t carry the same value as circulation that is paid for.
Robin Steinberg, senior vp and director of print investment and activation at MediaVest, says the rule change will allow buyers to have a better understanding of where magazines are being distributed. “I’ll be able to quantify and quality where those copies are going,” she is quoted as saying.