A.D.S. ACCERTAMENTI DIFFUSIONE STAMPA- AUDIPRESS
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
PUBLISHING: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY ANNOUNCES FREE PRESS TO BE INCLUDED IN CIRCULATION SURVEYS
AUDIPRESS COMMITMENTS ACCEPTED AND MADE OBLIGATORY
The free press, too, will be included in the circulation figures collected by AUDIPRESS. The Italian Competition Authority, at its meeting on 21 February 2007, decided to accept and make obligatory the commitments presented by AUDIPRESS, thus closing the investigation into possible anti-competitive conduct.
Based on those commitments, the six-monthly surveys of newspaper circulation in Italy will include free daily newspapers as well as paid newspapers.
In order to take part in AUDIPRESS’s survey it will be sufficient to make a declaration on the publisher’s own responsibility of the number of copies distributed. The survey data will be published for newspapers achieving a minimum circulation of 75,000.
The commitment offered by AUDIPRESS, in the Authority’s view, satisfies the question of the exclusion of the free press from the circulation certification system run by that association in Italy which led to discrimination in the sale of advertising to the benefit of paid newspapers. The need for any advance certification of the publication by ADS is eliminated. Surveys of the free press within the AUDIPRESS system will also be in every way comparable with those made for paid newspapers: the manner, methodology and economic conditions of the surveys in the two cases appear to be transparent and non-discriminatory.
The investigation was launched on 28 September 2005 following the presentation of a complaint by Edizioni Metro. As a result of the launch of the investigation, AUDIPRESS had already provisionally taken certain measures to include the free press in surveys beginning with the first half of 2006.
Rome, 2 March 2007