Audit Bureau of Circulations

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Publicize Your Membership

As the recognized leader in verified media information, ABC provides its members with a feeling of confidence, commitment, value and pride by providing credible, verified information that is essential and relevant to the media buying and selling process. Full members have the privilege of using ABC publicity material to tell their business partners about their commitment to accountability, credibility, and integrity—their membership in ABC.

After agreeing to ABC publicity rules, full members are permitted to use ABC logos and other promotional material per ABC's rules, policies and any applicable guidelines. Please take some time to get acquainted with ABC's publicity rules below:

A 1.1 General Publicity Rule
No member shall publish or cause to be published, or advertise or cause to be advertised, excerpts from the Audit Reports of the Bureau; or publish or cause to be published, or advertise or cause to be advertised, excerpts from the Publisher's Statements to the Bureau, Supplemental Data Reports or FAS-FAX, which excerpts shall mention in any way, directly or by implication, the name or authority of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, except as is permitted under the rules which follow.

A 1.2 Permissions and Prohibitions
(a)ABC authority may be claimed or implied only for figures, data or statements exactly as they appear in ABC reports and only if such figures, data or statements are identified as to Publisher's Statement, FAS-FAX or Audit Report from which they are taken and the period covered and only if the figures, data or statements are presented in such a manner as to give the reader the same sense or interpretation as though the report or reports quoted from were before him.

(b)Magazines analyzing non-paid circulation must clearly differentiate between the paid and non-paid components but will report a total of these components on Bureau reports. Comparisons of ABC data must also clearly identify the components being reported.

(c)In any advertisement or publicity where ABC authority or membership is stated or implied, any figures, data or statements that do not appear in ABC Publisher's Statements, FAS-FAX, Supplemental Data Reports or Audit Reports must be clearly identified as being presented by the author of the advertisement or publicity and ABC authority must neither be claimed nor implied for them.

(d)In any situation where a publisher elects to make an announcement regarding the results of an ABC Audit Report in advance of the actual publication and release of the audit by ABC, the publisher member must identify any/all adjustments to circulation that are to be reported in the audit as having been calculated based on ABC auditors findings.

(e)Any ABC data used in making comparisons must be from comparable types of reports, comparable circulation classifications, and for identical periods. Data from current Publisher's Statements may be compared with audited circulation for the preceding corresponding period. In any comparison between publications, data must be compiled from like reports and circulation classifications, sourced as required by A 1.2(a) and (c) of the rules.

(1)Business publication members may use ABC data to make comparisons for different Publisher's Statement periods under the following conditions:

(a)The data must be sourced to the most recently released Publisher's Statement for all publications involved in the comparison.

(b)The Publisher's Statement for the member making the analysis must be current.

(c)All documents must clearly identify the time periods covered by the Publisher's Statements being referenced in the comparison.

(d)All other aspects of Rule A 1.2 are applicable.

(2)When comparisons between newspapers are made, comparable data elements must be used. Circulation reported by day-of-week can only be compared across same identical days (Monday to Monday, Tuesday to Tuesday, 5-Day Average to 5-Day Average, etc.).

(f)When a newspaper (other than a newspaper published in Canada) compares its circulation to that of other newspapers, the comparison must clearly identify the Individually Paid and Other Paid Circulation components, or must only make comparisons of the Total Individually Paid Circulation and Other Paid Circulation.

If a comparison is made of total distribution only, it should identify that the figures include paid and other circulation. Total distribution may not be compared to paid circulation only. Newspapers that opt to analyze other circulation may not compare their total distribution to only the paid circulation of a newspaper that elects not to provide the optional analysis.

(g)When a Canadian newspaper compares its circulation to that of other newspapers, the comparison must clearly identify the paid and other circulation components. If a comparison is made of total circulation only, it should identify that the figures include both paid circulation and other circulation. Total circulation may not be compared to paid circulation alone.

(h)If data from out-of-date Publisher's Statements, FAS-FAX, Supplemental Data Reports or Audit Reports are shown, comparable data from the latest similar reports must be shown.

(i)Members of the Bureau shall not reproduce in any way any communications issued by or from the Bureau or excerpts therefrom unless direct permission has been given by the management or Board of Directors.

(j)Publisher members under suspension of service may publish claim of membership only if in connection with each such claim the words "under suspension of service" are added.

(k)The membership insignia, designed for members and authorized by the Board of Directors, may be used by any member in good standing on letterheads, advertising matter or any other place where the phrase "Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations" is legitimate.

(l)ABC members are permitted to reproduce Bureau reports for their own publication.  However, no modification of the ABC report is allowed; the reproduction must be completely faithful to the original both in terms of the information presented and the report format (including the color of the report).  No ABC member shall distribute information concerning other ABC members in a form substantially similar to the appearance of a standard Bureau report. With the exception of the parameters set forth above, no member shall distribute information in a form imitative of the appearance of a standard Bureau report.

(m)Except with prior written approval of the Bureau, members or applicants may not refer to ABC Bylaws & Rules or procedures with respect to reports which are not prepared by the Bureau.

(n)After a publisher has filed a Publisher's Statement or Interim Statement, and its receipt has been acknowledged by ABC, the publisher may publicize the figures from the Statement provided the figures, wherever used prior to the release by ABC of the figures in FAS-FAX or in the Statement are accompanied by the following qualification: "As filed with the Audit Bureau of Circulations, subject to audit."

(o)A publisher applicant, upon acknowledgement by ABC of receipt of both application and initial audit deposit, may publicize the fact of application only for a period of one year from the date the application was received. In the case of newly launched publications, where application has been received prior to the publishing of its initial issue, the fact of application may be publicized for a period of one year following the cover date of the first issue.

(p)The conditions and provisions contained in all references to publishers and all other conditions and provisions in these publicity rules shall be applicable to associate publisher members.

(q)While nothing contained in this Article should be construed as prior restraint as it pertains to news stories claiming ABC authority for information excerpted from its reports, this provision does not exempt the member from compliance with all other provisions of this Article.

(r)Business Publications reporting non-continuous qualified non-paid must clearly and separately delineate between non-paid circulation served on a continuous basis and that which is served on a non-continuous basis.

(s)Participants in ABC's Reader Profile and Subscriber Profile services may publicize results of their studies prior to the release of the final audit document provided final researcher tabulations and/or reader information has been submitted to ABC for verification, and provided all such publicity notes that the findings are subject to final audit results.

A 1.3 Violation of Publicity Rules
(a)In the case of a breach of observance of any of the publicity rules, the managing director may call upon the offending member to abandon the act or practice which is a breach. In addition, a bulletin may be issued, said bulletin to be so worded that members may have proper knowledge of the offense (the details of the offense shall not be given if the injury supposed to have been done would be aggravated thereby). The provisions of this paragraph shall not be mandatory upon the managing director. Distribution of bulletins announcing publicity violations shall be made to members only for internal use and shall not be supplied to members for redistribution.

(b)If, in the opinion of the managing director, the seriousness of the breach of observance of any of the publicity rules of this Chapter A so warrants, the managing director may immediately prefer charges against the offending member or such charges may be filed by any member who feels injured thereby as provided in Article 7 (http://www.accessabc.com/bylaws/bylaw2417.htm) of the bylaws.

I am an ABC member. I accept and understand ABC's publicity rules and policies. I agree to read and adhere to any usage guidelines provided for ABC logos and other promotional publicity pieces.

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