What Is ABC

ABC was launched in 1931 in response to advertiser demand for independent verification of the claims made by the advertising sales teams of newspapers and magazines especially the national press then known as Fleet Street. ABC was set up as a company limited by guarantee with a constitution that defines the composition of the governing Council. Recently changes have been made to allow VFD and Exhibitions to be represented on Council.

Currently, the Council has 32 places, 5 allocated to Permanent Members for trade associations (IPA - representing advertising agencies; ISBA - representing advertisers; NPA - representing national newspapers; NS - representing regional newspapers (paid & free); PPA - representing magazine publishers and 27 allocated to Elected Members (National Newspapers (2 elected members); Regional Paid Newspapers; Free Newspapers (1 elected member); Consumer Magazines (3 elected members); Business Magazines (3 elected members); Exhibitions (1 elected member); Advertisers (7 elected members); and Advertising Agencies (7 elected members)).

The Chairmanship of ABC rotates between media buyers and media owners and is held by an elected Council member. The ABC Council meets 4 times a year and a Management Committee meets 6 times a year. The Management Committee consists of: The Chairman of ABC, The Chief Executive of ABC, Director of Business to Business, Director of Newspapers & Consumer Magazines, The Managing Director of ABCe, Director of Finance/Company Secretary and Two Council Members

In addition there are Specialist Committees that meet approximately 4 times a year. There is a Specialist Committee for each category of membership and membership of the Specialist Committees consists of the elected representatives for that category together with 2 - 4 advertiser/agency representatives and additional publishing personnel. Each Specialist Committee meets to consider technical issues relating to changes to rules and audit requirements and sometimes to provide interpretation of the audit rules.

ABC is a member of the International Federation of ABC (IFABC)

ABC holds one of the most renowned brands within the media industry providing circulation figures for newspapers, magazines, B2B publications, directories, leaflets, exhibitions and websites. The core values of the brand are independence, transparency and comparability. Reflecting the breadth of involvement in the industry, ABC is divided into two divisions Business to Business and Newspapers & Consumer Magazines

The ABC Council, in response to industry demand from ISBA, IPA and PPA formed Electronic Media Audits Limited trading as ABCe at the end of 1996. ABCe is an industry owned, non-profit distributing company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of ABC. ABC Limited has invested in this enhancement to the ABC brand to ensure it will meet the media industry's future needs and therefore, the needs of ABC members.

ABCe offers certification of traffic and user data for electronic media to industry agreed standards based on census audit. Today ABCe holds the majority of the UK and Irish market for certification of site centric data and is now delivering the currency, integrity and partnerships asked of it.

ABCe was created to provide comparable data on electronic media traffic regardless of the methods used by those media to generate and analyse their traffic. Using a print analogy, ABC is in business to measure what print publishers do to common, industry agreed standards. It understands that publishers may want to sell on restricted SOR or firm sale and the industry agreed rules reflect this. Similarly, ABCe does not define how a website generates or collects its traffic data, ABCe defines how the traffic data is presented.