Eleven National Magazine Company titles, including flagship Good Housekeeping, have been forced the restate their circulations after a dispute between the publisher and the Audit Bureau of Circulations over the treatment of bulk sales.
Nine magazines – among them Good Housekeeping, Zest, Prima, House Beautiful and Esquire – have now published revised ABC average copy sales per issue, down by a total of 94,158 or 4.8%. Another two titles, County Living and Harpers & Queen, have reclassified a proportion of their bulk sales.
The dispute between Hearst Corporation-owned NatMagCo and the ABC was triggered by the promotional bundling of selected titles free with a number of national and regional newspapers. As the magazines received no income from this source, they failed to conform with the ABC’s bulk sales requirements.
The matter was the focus of a protracted but unsuccessful appeal by the publisher.
Data sourced from: Financial Times; additional content by WARC staff
