What an "interesting time" for dead-tree publishing, MCV reports that UK publisher Future Publishing is refuses to state the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures for its gaming titles.
The report states, "The publisher has traditionally released the data – which shows its magazine sales numbers from January 1st to June 31st – every August.
"However, this year the publisher has opted to keep the information private. A full audit for the calendar year is still expected from Future in February 2010."
It's rare for a publisher to refuse to reveal circulation figures during times of high or average circulation. However, Future's video gaming head, James Binns has been quoted as stating that the lack of audit this time around is down to cost. "Like many businesses, our particular focus this year is on aggressive cost-management, so we have only paid for those titles with a very clear commercial need to be audited."
This comes following news that the other main player in the video game print arena, Imagine, has been caught out by one irate father advertising porn in its middle-shelf titles. A poster to overclocker sent his eight year old daughter to WH Smith where she "walked in on her own and when straight for the gaming section. On the lower shelf she picked out several magazines including Play (a Sony PlayStation 3 Magazine) and 360 (a Microsoft Xbox 360 magazine) both of which are published by Imagine Publishing. Neither of these titles had an 18 or 15 certificate on them. She also picked up several Future Publishing magazines and Dennis Publishing magazines."
"After a quick look through all the magazine I found that only Imagine Publishing had any sort of pornography contained within them."
We should make it clear that the poster is referring to advertising.
The report states, "The publisher has traditionally released the data – which shows its magazine sales numbers from January 1st to June 31st – every August.
"However, this year the publisher has opted to keep the information private. A full audit for the calendar year is still expected from Future in February 2010."
It's rare for a publisher to refuse to reveal circulation figures during times of high or average circulation. However, Future's video gaming head, James Binns has been quoted as stating that the lack of audit this time around is down to cost. "Like many businesses, our particular focus this year is on aggressive cost-management, so we have only paid for those titles with a very clear commercial need to be audited."
This comes following news that the other main player in the video game print arena, Imagine, has been caught out by one irate father advertising porn in its middle-shelf titles. A poster to overclocker sent his eight year old daughter to WH Smith where she "walked in on her own and when straight for the gaming section. On the lower shelf she picked out several magazines including Play (a Sony PlayStation 3 Magazine) and 360 (a Microsoft Xbox 360 magazine) both of which are published by Imagine Publishing. Neither of these titles had an 18 or 15 certificate on them. She also picked up several Future Publishing magazines and Dennis Publishing magazines."
"After a quick look through all the magazine I found that only Imagine Publishing had any sort of pornography contained within them."
We should make it clear that the poster is referring to advertising.