Requested Sponsored Subscription Sales - Consumer Magazines

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Requested Sponsored Subscription Sales [Print/Digital]

A single copy personally requested by and distributed to a known individual, but paid for by a third party sponsor for a contracted period.

Principles

1. There must be a contractual arrangement between the sponsor and the publisher (or their agent)

2. Single copy per issue, requested by and distributed to a known addressee

3. Copies are paid for by the sponsor

4. For a contracted period and for a minimum number of issues (at least two)

Requirements 

1. There must be a contractual arrangement between the sponsor and the publisher (or their agent)

1. You must be able to provide evidence of the contractual arrangements between the sponsor and the publisher (or their agent) including the issues/period, the quantities to be supplied and the price.

2. Single copy per issue, requested by and distributed to a known addressee 

1. You must be able to provide evidence the addressee has specifically requested the copies.

2. You must retain a list of individual recipients for one designated issue each reporting period (the Audit Issue - see General Principles and Record Keeping section). In addition you must be able to recreate a list for any issue in the reporting period on request.

3. You must be able to demonstrate the copy is distributed to the addressee. 

Guidance Available

3. Copies are paid for by the sponsor 

1. The sponsor, who is paying for the subscription, is a third party to the addressee, publisher (and their agent if applicable). For example: A bank may offer the subscription to its customers as part of a loyalty package. If the customer opts to receive the subscription then the bank contracts to pay the publisher.

2. You can claim copies where payment is outstanding as long as there are reasonable grounds to consider them to be live, good and collectable.

Guidance Available

4. For a contracted period and for a minimum number of issues (at least two)

1. You cannot claim back issues.

Note: If you’re claiming digital copies, please also refer to the additional requirements in the Digital Copies section.

Guidance Available

Reporting

You will report Requested Sponsored Subscription Sales as follows, which will be broken out on the ABC certificate:

1. By geographical type:

1. United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland

2. Other Countries

2. By total average Requested Sponsored Subscription Sales over the period

3. A list of sponsors for all copies claimed in the Reporting Period

Guidance

G2. Single copy per issue, requested by and distributed to a known addressee

1. Distribution evidence: This will usually be from a third party company whose normal business is single copy distribution (such as Royal Mail). Typically the evidence will include testing the payment of invoices and related advice notes sufficient to identify the publication, issue, quantities and date distributed.  

2. You must have third party evidence that the individual has made a clear request to receive the publication before you send it to them. The following provide guidance and examples of acceptable methods of achieving this:

   1. The requestor must have been asked and agreed, or they have stated, that they wish to receive a copy of the publication. Bear in mind you will need to be able to demonstrate this at audit. For example using a question such as ‘sign here to request a free copy of <publication name> or ‘Complete this form to continue receiving this publication’.

   2. There must be a clear separate request to receive the publication that is not combined with a request for another product or service. For example: This means if the requestor is being offered the opportunity to request two or more publications, or register for an exhibition at the same time as requesting the publication, it should be clear to them that they can separately request to receive the publication(or not)  with or without requesting or accepting  the other product/service. You may use separate questions or separate boxes to make it clear what the individual is requesting in this scenario. 

   3. For a written or faxed request, the evidence could be demonstrated as third party by requiring the requestor to sign and date the form/request.

   4. For a request made over the telephone, by email or online, the following gives guidance and examples of how details could be demonstrated as third party:

      • Asking the requestor to provide their name and the answer to ABC’s Personal Identifier Question (PIQ) - a memorable question set by ABC and changed each calendar year – details of the current PIQ can be found on the ABC website.

      • In the case of telephone requests, recording the telephone calls in a manner that can be made available for review at audit. If you would like our advice on whether a call recording system might be acceptable please contact us. Note: It remains your responsibility to comply with any legislation regarding the recording of telephone conversations.

      • It may help if a copy of the data captured via online or telephone campaigns is kept in its original state as once this data is entered or merged onto a main database the audit trail evidencing the collection of the data can be lost. You may also consider retaining invoices from external contractors evidencing the work carried out in this regard.

      • You are advised to retain copies of online forms/screenshots or telephone scripts to provide evidence of questions asked and responses recorded.

G3. Copies are paid for by the sponsor

1. Where payment is outstanding you may take into account the following in considering whether there are reasonable grounds to consider the debt to be live, good and collectable:

   1. Publisher's normal credit terms

   2. Payment history

   3. Credit control efforts

G4. For a contracted period and for a minimum number of issues (at least two)

1. The contracted period may be a rolling issue by issue (or open ended) arrangement providing the contractual arrangements clearly intend there to be an on-going payment mandate and the sale is not promoted as a single copy purchase.