ABC Magazine Publisher's Statement Report

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Circulation Breakdown by Issue

The first section lists the number of copies served for the prior issue, the number of copies removed from or added to the circulation between issues and the number of copies served for the next issue. These numbers are provided for both paid and non-paid subscriptions. If you start with the number of copies served for the prior issue, subtract the removals and add the additions you should come up with a result that matches the number of copies served for the next issue.

The second section lists the number of qualified copies served for each issue, broken down by their classification. The column headings use the three character classification codes used by QuickFill. Click here for a table that lists the ABC nomenclature for each of these codes.

The next three sections list the number of copies served by request type for those subscriptions that were classified as 'Verified Individual Use', 'Verified Public Place or 'Analyzed Non-Paid'. The request type codes that are allowed for the two "verified" classes are specified by ABC and can be revised from time to time.

Average Circulation - Paragraph 1

This section provides average circulation numbers for all issues in the period. The paid circulation is broken down by into paid, verified, single copy sales and analyzed non-paid, as determined by this table:
 

Average Price During the Period - Paragraph 2

This section reports the average price of orders (both new and renewal) entered during the twelve months that preceded the report period. The number are broken down into separate six month intervals in order to provide the information needed for the ABC Average Price worksheet.

The "Gross production" line lists the sum of the prices of the orders, including shipping charges but not including sales tax. For orders received from subscription agencies the price is that paid by the subscriber, not the discounted price received by the publisher. (In order for the price calculations for agencies to be correct you must enter the discount percentage given to each subscription agency on the agency definition screen and you must enter the order using the correct agency code. Do not enter agency orders as two party subscriptions using the agency as the billing address.)

The "Less foreign orders" line lists the sum of the prices of orders that are shipped to countries other than the U.S.A. and Canada. The amount listed includes shipping charges but not sales tax.

The "Less sponsored subs" line lists the sum of the prices of orders that were assigned the classification code PS (Paid Sponsored).

The "Less cancels for nonpayment" line lists the sum of the prices of the orders that were cancelled for nonpayment (e.g. the billing series completed without payment being received.) The price is based on the full price of the order, not a pro-rated price based on the number of issues served. Shipping charges are included but sales tax is not.

The "Less premium values" line lists the declared values of the premiums used on the orders received, except those that were cancelled for nonpayment. The information for this line of the report is obtained from the declared values specified on the premium definition screen. You must be sure to fill in the premium values before running the report. You may want to run the "Average Prices" report to get a detailed list of the orders with their prices and premium values in order to confirm that the premium values were specified correctly.

The "Copies" column indicates the cross product of the term of the order and the number of copies ordered. So a single copy order for a one year term to a monthly publication will be counted as 12 copies (1 copy, 12 issues). An order for two copies for two years will be counted as 48 copies (2 copies, 24 issues). For orders that include free issues (e.g. "send payment with your order and receive additional two issues") the term is the base term plus the free issues.

The per-issue price is obtained by dividing the net dollars by the net copies. The annualized price is computed by multiplying the per-issue price by the number of issues per year.

• ABC Average Price Worksheet

The worksheet that ABC supplies for computing the average price uses a slightly different method than QuickFill does. It computes the percentage of cancellations for nonpayment that occurred during a later period and then retrospectively deducts that percentage from the sales in the earlier period used for average price calculations. QuickFill does not use the percentage method, instead it counts the actual number of copies and dollars for cancelled orders, following the method outlined in paragraph D1.2 (g) of the ABC rule book. QuickFill looks at every order received during the average price period and decides whether or not that order has been cancelled for nonpayment. Since the average price period ends at least six months before the date on which you are running the Publisher's Statement report this should be ample time for these orders to run the course of the billing series and for a final determination to be made as to whether an order is going to be paid for or not.

Paid, Verified & Analyzed Non-Paid Circulation by Issues - Paragraph 3

This section lists the exact number of paid, verified and analyzed non-paid copies served for each issue in the period. A column for single copy sales is also included. The numbers for the single copy sales are obtained from 'Single copies' field on the issue definition screen. If you have significant single copy sales you should enter the number of sales for each issue on the issue definition screen before running the this report.

Supplemental Analysis of Average Paid, Verified and Analyzed Non-Paid Circulation - Paragraph 6

Paragraph 6 is similar to paragraph 1, but provides a much more detailed breakdown. Paragraph 6a provides a breakdown of the top five types of Verified Public Place circulation, based on the request type codes of the subscriptions. Similarly, paragraph 6b provides a breakdown of the top five types of Verified Individual Use circulation.

Geographic Data - Paragraph 7

This section breaks down the paid, verified and analyzed non-paid copies served for the audit issue based on the state or Canadian province to which the subscription was mailed. If your publication has a very localized circulation you may want a breakdown by county instead, or if your publication has a large international circulation you may want a breakdown by country. Click here for instructions on obtaining a breakdown by county and click here for instructions for obtaining a breakdown by country.

Duration of New and Renewal Paid Subscriptions - Paragraph 8a

This section reports the lengths of the terms of the orders sold during the period. Sponsored orders (classification PS) are not included. For orders that include free issues the reported term is the sum of the base term and the free issues.

Use of Premiums for New and Renewal Paid Subscriptions - Paragraph 8b

This section reports the number of orders that were sold with a premium, broken down by premium code.  Sponsored orders (classification PS) are not included.

Channels - Paragraph 8c

This section reports the channel via which each order was sold. Sponsored orders (classification PS) are not included. The information for this section of the report is based on the channel codes you enter in each order and the sales channel field specified on the definition screen for each channel code. If you failed to specify the ABC sales channels for each channel code you can fix the channel code definitions and re-run the Publisher's Statement report. QuickFill will re-sort the orders based on the revised channel code specifications.

Post Expiration Copies - Paragraph 9

The number of paid copies served for each issue is reported, together with the average for all issues. Also included is the number of graced copies served during the period. An explanation of how the number of graced copies is determined is in order here. Suppose you have a 12 issue order that expires with the December 2004 issue. If you serve the January and February 2005 issues to that order, the served issue count for the order will reflect the actual number of issues served - 14. If a one year renewal after the February issue is served then you may elect to allocate those two grace issues to the renewal order, in which case the original order's served issue count will be reduced to 12 and the renewal order will start with a served issue count of 2. Whether this "roll forward" action occurs is determined based on the settings you choose on the Gracing section of the Renewal tab of the publication definition screen. Whether you elect to roll forward graced issues in that manner or not, those two graced issues will be included in this section of the report.

Business/Occupational Analysis

This section breaks out the paid, verified and analyzed non-paid copies served for the audit issue, based on the answers to the qualification questions in your questionnaire that are found in the galley data file for the audit issue.

Consumer magazines generally do not collect business and occupation data, but in the event that you should collect the data QuickFill can provide a breakdown of the data. You choose which questions are reported on the filter screen for the report. You can obtain a report that provides a breakdown by any single question, or you can get a two dimensional cross-tab for any two questions.

If you have subscribers with multiple responses to the question selected, only the first response entered will be counted if you create a cross-tab style report based on the data for two questions. If you select only one question, thus creating a report that does not have a cross-tab style, all of the subscribers' responses will be counted.

The row labeled "Did not respond" represents subscribers who failed to provide any answer to the question.

The row labeled "Older than 3 years" represents subscriptions whose qualification data is more than three years old. QuickFill automatically reclassifies as non-qualified any verified individual request subscriptions (VI with request type INR), NPI (non-paid individual), NPL (non-paid list source), NPA (non-paid association) and NPM (non-paid club membership) subscriptions under the three year rule. This automatic reclassification occurs in the issue label update. Since these old subscriptions are automatically reclassified as non-qualified, this row should always contain zeroes (non-qualified subscriptions are not included in the report).

The row labeled "Subscriptions" represents paid subscriptions that are older than 3 years.