Yep, more still on the UK's Entertainment Retailers Association campaign against the pesky Mail On Sunday and its decision to release the new Prince album as a free cover-mount. Now ERA is calling on the official newspaper circulation body to investigate the promotion, and ultimately to not count the sales of this Sunday's free CD edition of the Mail.
As previously reported, music retailers aint happy at the decision by Prince's management to make his new album initially available in the UK for free via the Sunday newspaper. The music retail sector, of course, oppose any promotions which prevent them from stocking high profile releases and, while HMV have agreed to stock the Mail On Sunday this weekend in a bid to gain some advantage from the promotion, other retailers have talked about boycotting all Prince catalogue. As also previously reported, in the label sector SonyBMG, who had been planning to release the album in the UK by conventional means, have pulled out of their deal.
Now ERA have sent an open letter to ABC, the authority which publishes circulation figures for UK newspapers and magazines, calling on them to not count sales of this week's Mail On Sunday because, they claim, the free Prince CD will warp sales figures and mislead advertisers about how many people actually read the weekly paper. Many Prince fans, they argue, will take the CD and immediately discard the paper, therefore not consuming any advertising in the main publication.
They write: "We believe that this promotion and others like it potentially distort the accuracy of ABC's audit in a way which could mislead advertisers and others using your data. We believe that if ABC allows such 'hyping' of a newspaper's circulation figures by the use of excessive incentives it can only undermine the currency of an ABC audit and ultimately undermine your greatest asset, your credibility".
Of course newspapers have used major promotions like this to "spike" their circulation figures for years, because it means their average quarterly circulation seems higher, enabling them to up their rate cards. ABC have never done anything to stop such spikes before, so I don't see them doing anything now, though some say they may consider the issues raised by ERA at a future general meeting.
But Mail On Sunday boss Stephen Miron doesn't seem too bothered. Responding to the ERA letter, he told Music Week: "From my perspective this is a sad and desperate and unfailingly ignorant move from an organisation which doesn't understand how newspapers are purchased".