The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) plans to introduce a new auditing service just for newspapers of print circulation of 25,000 or less, hopefully at the beginning of 2010. The fees will be lower – starting at $2000, and priced according to circulation. The announcement, as we read it in MediaDailyNews, is about “giving smaller newspapers a boost at a time when they are under pressure from both Internet competition and the economic downturn.”  However, the announcement then goes on to say that these are the very papers who are still realizing a profit. Inland Press Association, for example, reported that newspapers with circulation of 15,000 or less have seen a five year revenue growth of 2.4 percent.

The price cut for the audit, what Kirk Davis, Gatehouse Media president and COO said would likely be a savings of 25-50 percent, might have been more appreciated by the many thousands of community newspapers of 25,000 to 100,000 circulation, though we did learn from Editor&Publisher that 2010 audit fees will be frozen for all for the third year in a row. Additionally, the one-year testing of a report that consolidates print, online and other audience data will be extended.