BPA Decision: Digital Site License Circ Remains Non-Qualified,
But More Visible Reporting Allowed

BPA Worldwide's board has rejected a proposal to allow electronic publication distribution under site license agreements to be reported as qualified circulation.

Instead, at its December meeting, the board voted to allow publishers to report non-qualified site license distribution in a separate paragraph on page one of the BPA statement and throughout the report. Previously, site license data could only be reported in the “additional data” paragraph in BPA’s business and consumer statements.

In most site licenses agreements, a company pays to receive a business publication in digital format, and then posts it on its intranet or distributes the content to a contracted-for number of employee readers, or "seats." Non-paid licenses are not unheard of, but limited in practical value if they cannot be reported as qualified.

BPA publisher members that have or would like to begin digital publication site licenses have lobbied for qualified status for the distribution. The audit bureau's board rejected the proposal on the grounds that "there is no effective means to confirm download/viewing information by company employees."

BPA's site license reporting rules state that the contract must require the subscriber/administrator of the license to notify all of seats/individuals of the availability of each issue. Licenses may be reported only for a definitive number of seats (global or companywide agreements cannot be reported). Paid site licenses must adhere to the paid circulation rule (B7.31), and non-paid licenses to the “request from recipient’s company” rules (B10.22, B10.23 and B10.26).

Given all of the above, publishers may now choose to disclose throughout the BPA report, as non-qualified distribution, a publication's number of site licenses and authorized seats served, including paid and non-paid, demographic, license source and age and geographic data, using standard BPA tables. Reporting the name of the licensee company is optional.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) allows paid digital site licenses to be reported as qualified paid circulation, provided the purchasing company pays a qualifying price for each subscription and its core non-paid qualified rules would apply to non-paid site licenses (although no members currently have non-paid agreements). .

Asked about ABC's thinking on site licenses, SVP communications and strategic planning Neal Lulofs notes that ABC's B-to-B publishers "currently report a very small percentage" of digitally delivered circulation.

"This is a newer area of distribution that continues to evolve, but clearly offers benefits to publishers, advertisers and readers," Lulofs adds. "Given today's media environment, the ABC board doesn't want to hinder our publishers' circulation marketing opportunities in this area of digital distribution. We require full disclosure in publisher statements and audit reports, so advertisers can discuss this circulation with individual publishers. The board will continue to monitor trends in this area and augment rules and guidelines accordingly."