• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, November 15, 2006

In a move that's bound to stir new debate over the definition of magazine audience estimates, the Audit Bureau of Circulations Tuesday announced plans to make its controversial new "consolidated" media report available to consumer magazines. The report, which combines data on a magazine's audited print circulation, pass-along readership and Web-site traffic into a single, consolidated document, is part of an aggressive push by the ABC to expand its role as an authority in print audience estimates well beyond its original mandate of auditing simple circulation reports.

But some critics have complained that the data being combined is not audited with the same degree of rigor as the circulation reports, and that having them disseminated by the ABC might confuse some media planners and buyers. The move also accelerates a push by the print industry to incorporate new platforms such as online and digital magazine editions into a new "total audience" metric. To mollify some of the criticism, the ABC board said it was adopting a new term, "total contacts," which would replace the "total audience reach" term it has been using to describe the consolidated data.

To date, the ABC has been providing the consolidated reports only for trade publications. Crain Publication's Advertising Age was the first to adopt it.

David Leckey, chairman of ABC's magazine committee and executive vice president of consumer marketing at American Media Inc., said: "All of us on the ABC board are united in our push for circ transparency and clarity, while recognizing our responsibilities to all ABC constituents."

Leckey added that as of January, ABC will require greater precision on the part of publications that send "sponsored" issues to consumers for free. It will demand that magazines detail purchase quantities and payments and disclose to the recipient who is sponsoring the free issue. In addition, sponsors must outline how the free issues serve as promotions.

In an important adjustment, ABC is now referring to the measure in its Consolidated Media Report as "total contacts" rather than "total audience reach." The new name comes on the heels of criticism from executives in the publishing industry, who objected to the original term because the report doesn't eliminate potential duplication between print and online readership.

Although ABC emphasized that the new report never claimed to eliminate duplication, some executives - especially newspaper researchers - still objected to "total audience reach" as potentially misleading.

The consolidated audience debate comes as publishers are looking for new ways to define their audience bases in an effort to sway Madison Avenue on the total value of their readership. Time magazine, the flagship of the world's largest magazine publisher, Time Inc., last week announced a bold plan to radically alter the way it sells its advertising, shifting to an "audience selling model" similar to the one used historically by the TV industry. The change, which goes into effect in January when Time also shifts to a Friday on-sale date from Monday, will utilize Mediamark Research Inc.'s new "issue accumulation study" to determine the audience reach of each edition of Time magazine, enabling marketers and agencies to determine how the reach of the ads accumulates over time in editions of the newsweekly.