MPA Suggests Guidelines For Tablet Circ Reporting

Ipad2-with-Magazine-

With consumer interest in digital versions of magazines growing and tablet sales soaring, the MPA, the association of magazine media, released a set of voluntary guidelines for reporting tablet-based circulation.

The guidelines are intended to help establish transparency around tablet circ, including making it easier for publishers and advertisers to compare tablet circ across different publications.

The guidelines, developed collaboratively by big magazine publishers participating in the MPA Tablet Metrics Task Force, suggest that publishers report the following metrics: total consumer paid digital issues; total number of tablet readers per issue; total number of sessions per issue; total time spent per reader per issue; and the average number of sessions per reader per issue.

advertisement

advertisement

The task force also suggested schedules for reporting tablet circ. For monthly publications, they recommended releasing metrics data within 10 weeks of the newsstand on-sale date, and within seven weeks for weekly publications.

The MPA task force included Bonnier Corporation, Condé Nast, Forbes, Hearst Magazines, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Meredith Corporation and Time Inc. Task force members also consulted with seven leading advertising agencies to determine what agencies and clients would like to see included in tablet circ reports.

Also, Hearst Magazines announced that it will begin reporting metrics for paid digital copies, starting with its iPad editions. In line with the MPA suggestions, these reports will include total paid copies, total time spent per reader per issue and average number of sessions per reader per issue.

In March, Hearst revealed that Cosmopolitan, a favorite at the print newsstand, has attracted over 100,000 digital subscribers. At the time, Hearst Magazines President David Carey stated: “Hearst Magazines has sold more than 500,000 digital subscriptions across its portfolio to date and expects to reach 1 million by the end of 2012.”

Also in March, Conde Nast revealed that it will begin sharing information with advertisers, including the number of tablet subscriptions and single-copy sales, open rates for the tablet edition and the amount of time spent with the digital magazine by readers. Advertisers that pay extra for premium ads can get more information, including how many readers accessed the ad, the number of times it was displayed and average time spent with the ad.

The Audit Board of Circulations recently introduced a new report format that will offer significantly more detail on consumer magazines’ digital publications, incorporating several recommendations from a combined task force of U.S. and Canadian publishers and advertisers.

Under the new rules, when a publication’s digital editions constitute over 2% of its total circ (and average at least 3,000 copies), the publisher must report net digital circulation by platform type, including Web, apps and multiplatform offers. The new report format requires publishers to report several key metrics for digital magazine consumption via tablet apps and Web browsers, including the number of unique browsers or devices, total visits and average visit duration.

Next story loading loading..