ABCs of Magazine Circulation Not as Simple as They Look

(MoneyWatch)  Circulation figures in the magazine business have always been, well, a matter of some dispute; now, a story in Mediaweek points out another way in which circulation figures can be deceiving: they, to an increasing degree, include digital copies of magazines. Not Web site traffic, mind you, but, essentially electronic replicas of magazines, like what you can get from a service like Zinio, which downloads a digital version of magazines to subscribers' computers.

Though still small, Mediaweek pegged the number of copies of electronic mags circulating at one million by the end of last year, and explains it's about to jump up following a broadening of the definition of an electronic mag by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, to include what it described as, "electronic products (but excluding magazines' free-access Web sites) that share the same basic identity as the source magazine even if they're not exact replicas of it." While more readership is good, it looks as though this definition is potentially being used to game the system; I found a Web site where this was being promoted to U.K. magazine publishers like this: "Digital brochures are now integral to many publishers' circulation figures, which has a direct impact on attracting advertisers." In other words, use a digital brochure to pump up those sagging circulation figures!

What should be obvious here is that a "digital brochure" is not the same thing as a print copy of a magazine, nor is the user experience similar. Ad buyers are not pleased. Mediavest print specialist Robin Steinberg tells Mediaweek: "To serve these copies as part of the rate base without understanding the difference is questionable."

When you think of this circulation ploy in the context of how advertisers get all tied up in their underwear over much more minor changes in media consumption, that this is deemed acceptable practice by the ABC is astonishing. As I've said here before, the ad community is even wary of buying sites like Hulu because of the perceived differences in watching video on a PC rather than on TV. Reading a magazine on a digital platform instead of a print one seems even more different. As circulation figures pretty much exist for advertisers, without further delineation, it seems like the advertisers are the ones that are being sold, and what they're being sold is a bill of goods.