BPA Stresses its Worldwide Audit Services

Circulation Management, August 1, 2004

The article "Global Control" (CM, July) makes the following statement: "...and though BPA and ABC audit many international and UK titles...". In addition, the article "VNU UK's Leading-Edge E-Strategies" includes the following quote: "ABC outside the US doesn't audit digital titles...BPA is going to damage ABC outside North America for B-to-B publications."

Given that CM's readership is predominantly US, the effect of these two statements is likely to be an unintentional perpetuation of a widespread misunderstanding about the relationships among various audit bureaus.

Specifically, the "ABC" that conducts audits in the US and Canada has no relationship to the "ABC" that conducts audits in the UK - or for that matter, to any of the other nine "ABC's" that conduct audits elsewhere in the world (including Australia, the Czech Republic, India, South Africa, etc.). These ABC's are totally unaffiliated, and each of them has limited geographic scope, for the most part conducting business in only one or two countries. There are also many other audit bureaus in various regions of the world that do not bear an "ABC" moniker.

In reality, BPA Worldwide is the only audit bureau that lives up to the "worldwide" name. We audit more than 3,000 media properties in more than 20 countries.

Also, to clarify another point that is often misunderstood: Many of the audit bureaus mentioned above, along with BPA, belong to a voluntary, cooperative federation called IFABC (International Federation of Audit Bureaux of Circulations). This organization was established to provide a forum for discussion of issues relating to verifying and reporting facts about the circulations of publications and related data, although the standards and procedures used do vary considerably from bureau to bureau. Karlene Lukovitz Vice President, Communications BPA Worldwide