Publicity Rule Amended to Expand Opportunity for Data Comparison (effective March 7, 2005)

ABC Publicity Rule A 1.2 Permissions and Prohibitions, section (d) states that when comparing ABC data for two or more different publications, “identical” periods must be used for all publications.

However, at the March 2005 board meeting, the ABC board of directors adopted a change in reporting cycles allowing any business publication member to file Publisher’s Statements on either a March, June, September, or December ending cycle. As a result, the time periods covered by ABC reports could vary by title. This prompted the need to amend the publicity rules.

As of March 7, 2005, when comparing ABC data for two or more different publications, business publication members may make comparisons of ABC data for different Publisher’s Statement periods. This is only acceptable under the following conditions:

• The data for each publication must be sourced to the most recently released Publisher’s Statement
• The member making the analysis must use its most current Publisher’s Statement data
• The source reference for each publication must identify the specific time period covered by the Publisher’s Statement being used in the comparison
• All other stipulations of A 1.2 are still applicable

See also Rule A 1.2 Permissions and Prohibitions, section (d)(1)

Posted on 3/29/05