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Reporting Standards for products registered in the National Newspaper sector, for reporting periods ending June 2025 onwards (see note above for periods ending up to (and including) May 2025).

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Reporting Standards

• General Principles and Record Keeping
• Reported Data

Paid Single Copies

• Retail Sales (Sale or Return)
• Retail Sales (Firm Sale)
• Single Copy Sales

Paid Subscriptions

• Single Copy Subscription Sales
• Voucher Subscription Sales
• Corporate Subscription Sales
• All You Can Read Sales

Paid Multiple Copies

• Multiple Copy Sales

Free Copies

• Free Pick Up

Other Countries

• Other Countries

Other

• Editions
• Issues to be included / excluded
• Reporting Periods
  
  
• Publication Active Views
  
  
• Return Form Submission, Audit, Certification

Latest updates

December 2024

• Periods from June 2025: Details of changes together with the Reporting Standards for periods from June 2025 are available here.

May 2023

• Reporting Daily Variances: The table showing the variance of the day-of-week averages from the total average circulation will now be reported once a year (with the December data) instead of twice a year, with the variances being calculated over the previous 12 months.

April 2022

• Multiple Copy Business Sales (Digital only): You may now claim back issues up to 12 months old, reported against the issue current at the time it is viewed.

December 2021

• Subscriptions reporting - From the January 2022 Reporting Period:

  • The two subscription categories ‘Single Copy Subscription Sales’ and ‘Voucher Subscription Sales’ will be reported combined on certificates (Note: The underlying definitions and requirements for each category remain unchanged).

  • The annual subscription rate will no longer be reported.

April 2021

• Website/App Activity: The Standards have been overhauled to provide a more flexible and cost-effective method of reporting Web and App activity.

• Email Newsletters: The Email Standards have also undergone a review, placing a greater focus on the email platform used to report data and introducing the ability to report multiple email newsletters on the same certificate.

• Digital Events: These new Standards allow you the opportunity to report attendance and other related data for online events, such as webinars, seminars and other virtual events.

• Digital Publications: As an alternative to reporting calendar months, you may opt to use the equivalent dates for the relevant months according to the published ABC Accounting Calendar.

November 2020

• Monday – Friday Daily indices (July to December 2020): As a result of the July 2020 figures being reported under temporary COVID variations, the reporting of the Monday to Friday daily indices is suspended for the July to December 2020 period.

July 2020

• Subject to any significant unforeseen circumstances in the interim, the standards variations and monthly reporting will revert to ‘normal’ from the August 2020 data, which is issued in September.

• Monday – Friday Daily indices (January to June 2020): Due to the disruption caused by the pandemic, the reporting of the Monday to Friday daily indices is suspended for the January to June 2020 period.

• Publishers may opt for public or private reporting.

• Optional metrics may be reported providing these are to industry-agree definitions.

• There will no longer be a monthly newsbrands report.

March 2020

• Temporary standards changes issued to help address the challenges of coronavirus.

Issued December 2019

• Free circulation: From February 2020 you can include free pick up copies in your ABC circulation claim. You will need to give 14 days advance notice to ABC before the distribution.

• Total circulated copies (12 months): We will include on the ABC report page the total number of copies circulated across all titles over a 12 month period (January to December each year). Please refer to the link above for more information.

• Publishers have the option to include the individual figures for their own titles - please let us know should you wish to take advantage of this.

Issued August 22, 2018

• Retail Sales - Retail Incentive schemes: The rules have been updated to clarify what steps we expect publishers to take when operating a retail offer and how we’ll approach the auditing.

Issued August 2018

• Digital Editions: Ability to report by circulation and/or Publication Active Views (PAVs), purchaser’s details no longer required for copies sold at less than 20%, minimum 20% price for gift subscriptions removed, listing of Digital Edition products included in claim

• Voucher Subscriptions: Removal of reporting the voucher subscription offers in the period, minimum voucher subscription term reduced from 4 weeks to 2 issues

• Paid Multiple Copies: Caps for different audience type/locations simplified and rationalised, General cap introduced that provides flexibility for new routes to market, ability for caps to be exceeded providing evidence of demand available for audit, restriction removed on caps where multiple titles distributed at a particular location

• Consolidated auditing: Option for monthly certificates to be audited on a quarterly cycle

• Web Traffic: Breaking out automated traffic becomes optional, for certificates of two months or more the domain/inventory listing is only reported for the final month.

Issued April 2018

• Excluded issues - the criteria for applying to exclude an issue affected by reasons outside the publisher's control have been amended.

Issued April 2017

• Digital Editions: All You Can Read Sales - A new category for Digital Edition copies where the consumer has paid and viewed a copy as part of a multi-publication offer.

• Digital Editions: Multiple Copy Business Sales - A new category for Digital Edition copies purchased by third parties that are made available to and viewed by a consumer.

If you require information on any earlier changes please contact us.

Reporting Standards Group (RSG)

The Reporting Standards Group (RSG) members below have been approved by the ABC Board and represent the wider membership in the development of the Reporting Standards. As an ABC member, if you have any issue or request about these standards, you can contact us or any of the RSG members below.

• Adam Crow, Head of Press, Essencemediacom

• Adrian Pike, Investment Director, Manning Gottlieb OMD

• Chris Amor (Chair), Trading Director, News UK

• Charlie Varley, Planning Director, Dentsu Aegis

• Craig Smith, Head of Publishing, GroupM

• Graham Bradley, Director of Newspaper Sales and Circulation, Telegraph Media Group Ltd

• Greg Pipe, Print Ops Manager, All Response Media

• Janet White, Print Circulation Director, Financial Times

• John Howard, Newspaper Sales Director, Reach

• Nick Brown, Display Trading Director, Starcom

• Peter Hayward, Head of Circulation Performance, Mail Newspapers

• Roger Clapham, Head of Supply Chain, Guardian News and Media

• Trevor Jones, Sales Performance Director, News UK

• Vanessa Doyle, Head of Publishing, IPG Mediabrands

Submission deadlines

Accounting calendar

Details of the weeks applied to each audit month and the months applied to each reporting period.

National Newspaper data

View the latest data in our Data Hub.

Archived standards

If you require past versions of Reporting Standards you can find them here.