Rules & Resources
Newspaper Support Center

Home-Delivery Promotions Guidebook—Canadian Newspapers

Free—Part of a Single Subscription Term Stated as Free

A newspaper may wish to construct a new or renewal subscription offer where part of the total term of delivery (subscription length) is presented to the consumer as free, trial, risk-free, no additional cost, bonus, no extra charge or other synonymous language.

The circulation associated with the entire period of delivery has the opportunity to be classified as paid circulation on ABC reports provided the promotional material presents a perceived cost to the consumer for the entire subscription term. This may be accomplished by stating the full-delivery term and cost of the subscription in the contract portion of the order.

See Rule C 21.1 Paid Circulation Defined.

The contract portion of the order is the material the consumer returns to the publisher such as:

  • The direct mail card.
  • The portion of a solicitation flyer that must be mailed to the publication.
  • The order page on the Internet.
  • The point of verbal agreement in a telemarketing script or inbound call.

Pricing

ABC rules require that a subscriber pay at least one cent, net of all considerations—for the entire delivery term of the subscription, inclusive of the weeks represented as free.

Promotional Material

All promotional material must:

  • State the term of the subscription that is paid and the term that is free.
  • State the frequency of the subscription.
  • State the purchase price.
  • Contain language in the contract portion of the offer that states the full-delivery term and purchase price of the subscription.
  • Reflect a qualifying price for the entire term of delivery.

For Easy Pay offers, if part of a term is presented as free, then the promotional material must contain language that implies value to the free term with a paid portion of the offer. For example, if it solicits “Choose Easy Pay and get the first 4 weeks free,” then the value can be implied by stating, “That’s the first 8 weeks for the price of 4.”

Examples—Part of a Single Subscription Term Stated as Free

Reporting

When part of the subscription term is presented as free to the consumer, the end result is an offer at a reduced price (discount). Therefore, the reporting is the same as that for discounts.

Circulation generated from discounted subscription sales is classified as Home Delivery on the ABC Publisher’s Statement.

Canadian Publisher's Statements delineate between circulation sold at 50 percent or more of basic prices and circulation sold at less than 50 percent of basic prices.

The price classification for discounted subscriptions is based on the subscription price offered to the consumer.

  • If the price offered for the subscription is 50 percent or more of basic prices, the circulation is included in Paragraph 1A.
  • If the price offered for the subscription is less than 50 percent of basic prices, the circulation is included in Paragraph 1B, with further disclosure in Paragraph 1G.

In Paragraph 2, the circulation is classified in the proper reporting zone based on where the copies are delivered to the subscriber.

Paragraph 6 lists all reduced prices at which the subscriptions were sold. This listing includes the frequency, term and price at which the subscriptions were purchased.


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