The publishers’ statements are a special type of reporting, and used by the majority of the ABCs in the world. These statements consist of data provided to the ABC by the publishers without being audited. They are issued more frequently than the audit, and of course, the data is more current than the audited information.
In may cases the audits are done on a yearly or biannual basis, while the publishers’ statements are released quarterly or even monthly, making the actual adjusted data obsolete. Hereby the publishers’ statements serve the goal to give to the market updated circulations figures. In Hungary today all the market is watching for our quarterly Quick-Report.
If an ABC decides to introduce publishers’ statements, it should keep in mind the following:
• The content of the publishers’ statements should have the same format and structure as the audit certificates.
• The publishers are fully responsible for the content – and any mistakes – in the data. Because the data is not audited at the time of publishing, the ABC can only be responsible for administrating and publishing the data, and not for the content. Thus, no data correction shall be allowed after the publication of the statements.
• All the statements should be published together in the same time; therefore, a final deadline to report the data is a must.
• All publishers’ statements must be audited later on. There has to be a set of very strong rules (and sanctions) for those who are reluctant to audit a statement.