• November 15, 2011

The board of the Audit Bureau of Circulations elected Sunni Boot, CEO of ZenithOptimedia Canada, as its new chairman. Boot joined the ABC board in 2008 and previously served as chairman of the ABC Canada Board Committee. She replaces outgoing chairman Merle Davidson of JCPenney Inc., who held the role for three years. Davidson will continue his involvement with ABC as a director representing U.S. advertisers.

In related news, the ABC board disclosed it has received and update from a group of North American newspaper publishers examining its “Consolidated Media Report,” which indicated a “strong desire for flexible reporting of a newspaper’s entire brand, with standardization of core metrics to ease comparability for media buyers.”

Key goals also include establishing standards and metrics for new digital platforms and focusing on timelier reporting of digital outlets. The task force will make its formal recommendations to the ABC board in March 2012.
In other newspaper actions, the board finalized the new “total consumer accounts” metric that will make its first appearance on March 2012 statements.