ABC Audit Leads to Magazine Circ Restatement

By: (AP) The publisher of PC Magazine announced Monday that it would reclassify about 20% of its circulation from paid to non-paid as a result of an audit by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, a publishing industry group. The announcement follows recent news of circulation overstatement at several major newspapers.

Ziff Davis Media Inc., a New York-based publisher of technology magazines, said it would reclassify about 260,000 of its 1.2 million subscriptions from 2003 and the first half of 2004 from "paid" to the category of "analyzed non-paid" under ABC circulation rules. The total circulation figures remain unchanged.

Ziff Davis disclosed in July that it might have to reclassify some of the subscribers it obtained through an arrangement with Synapse Group Inc., a subscription agent owned by magazine publishing giant Time Inc.

Magazine publishers are allowed to count as paid circulation copies that are given away to readers but which generate income from marketers, such as when direct mail marketers pay subscription agents like Synapse group for access to their mailing lists.

Ziff Davis said the issue came up after the audit bureau found that certain payments from marketers were not being received by Synapse within the seven-month period required by ABC rules to allow the copies to be counted as paid circulation.

Last month, the circulation body censured Synapse for improper record-keeping. It also punished three newspapers for breaking circulation rules and overstating circulation -- Newsday of Melville, N.Y., the Chicago Sun-Times and Hoy. The Dallas Morning News later revealed that it too needed to revise its circulation statements downward.