How Changes to County Analysis Reporting Saves Newspapers Time

New methodology defines county by USPS ZIP code.

Ken Shultz, Senior Vice President, Auditing

At its July meeting, the board of directors reviewed AAM’s methodology for reporting county-level data and agreed to make changes to the requirements to save newspapers time, expedite the data filing process and better align the data with other industry sources.

Beginning with September 2018 quarterly filing, AAM will adopt county boundaries that are defined by an aggregation of ZIP codes as determined by the USPS, in lieu of the traditional government definitions. Previously, if a ZIP code spanned multiple counties, the newspaper would adjust their ZIP code data based on the point of delivery within the county. Now the circulation will be counted within the primary county as defined by the USPS, eliminating the need for newspapers to recalculate the circulation based on the traditional county definition.

County-level data will continue to be available in the Analyzer tool within the Media Intelligence Center for audits and will be added to the quarterly data.

For questions about how these changes may impact your audit, please contact your audit manager. If you have questions about how to file your quarterly data based on the new methodology, please contact Kelly Murphy at 224-366-6488 or Tim Leen at 224-366-6435.