Publishers benefit from jousting by audit bureaus

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 1, 1992 by Lisa E. Phillips

Service has become the name of the auditing game, making publishers and media planners the big winners in the high-tech duel now being waged by the Big Two circulation auditing bureaus.

Since last summer, Schaumburg, Illinois-based Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and New York City-based Business Publications Audit of Circulation (BPA) have played one-upmanship with an array of electronic innovations, price freezes, rule changes, and product enhancements that the bureaus hope will attract new members and keep old ones happy.

"It's all very positive," says Tyler Schaeffer, vice president/associate media director at FCB/Leber Katz Partners, New York. He acknowledges there's an apples-to-oranges analogy in comparing the consumer-oriented ABC numbers to the business magazine-weighted BPA figures, adding, "Each has its own turf, but it's good to see competition."

The competition is most visible in the race for digital superiority. Last spring, both organizations introduced electronic filing systems for publisher's statements; both now boast of cutting weeks off turnaround time. And when BPA armed its 50 auditors with laptop computers last summer, ABC's 150 auditors had them by fall. Behind-the-scenes moves keep members happy, too. Citing three years of declining revenues in the business press, BPA froze its audit prices last July. In November, ABC put a freeze on dues and audit deposits.

BPA last September allied itself with the Canadian Circulation Audit Bureau and the Audit Bureau of Circulations/U.K. (not affiliated with the U.S. service). Beginning next month, BPA members will have access to all members of those services - a total of 847 consumer magazines and 2,440 business publications. ABC has included Canadian magazines in its FAS-FAX since 1970.

The heat is already on for this summer. Beginning in July, ABC will test its Periodical Blue Book on CD-ROM with 12 volunteer members. Six-month statements from all 668 magazine members will be distributed on a single compact disk. A finished product could be available as early as November of this year.

BPA president Joseph Foley says BPA will decide by the end of this year whether to issue publisher's statements on diskette or CD-ROM; reports won't be online, however. ABC has offered online services to members for several years, says spokesman Ray Chalmers.

Still on top

Despite the maneuvering, media directors agree that both services provide reliable circulation numbers for their members - business and consumer. "When Woman's Day and those women's service magazines were going through circulation changes, we pored over the ABC statements," says David Drake, vice president/associate media director at Chicago's DDB Needham.

ABC is firmly entrenched in auditing consumer magazines, with 668 consumer members to BPA's 240. BPA remains the leader in auditing business and controlled-circulation titles, with 1,250 business members to ABC's 350.

But in February, BPA changed its rules to allow initial audits to be completed in three months for start-up magazines. ABC's Chalmers calls the move "academic," saying that ABC's business members can receive three-month audits for any calendar quarter. But BPA applications have hit a three-year high, Foley says, attributing "a good share" of the increase to the rule change.

The bottom line is that each circulation service is just that - a service. "To me [ABC and BPA are] like one of those wrenches you have in a toolbox," notes DDB Needham's Drake. "You don't use it all the time, but it's there when you need it."

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