ABC Complaints in the people’s republic

Nothing beats a bit of decent competition. It ups the ante for all concerned. The salient part of the first sentence was the word “decent”. We’re not asking for strict Queensbury rules here, actually we’ve always advocated a more “Dan Donnelly” approach to the pugilist’s art.

With obviously not enough on their plates (like declining sales, declining advertising revenue, no digit strategy to speak of etc) the papers in the People Republic have taken to handbags and their ring is in the pages of the complaints process of the ABC.

Five of the last regional newspaper complaints to the ABC in the past year have involve on or more papers in Cork (see below).   

One would suggest that efforts should be focused elsewhere.  The latest chastisement was aimed at The Evening Echo, who in a media release, said that the publication sold over five million copies a year and attributed this as an ABC audited figure. The Cork News lodged a complaint to the ABC saying this was a breach of the ABC rules as they could only quote their ABC audited daily figure and not extrapolate anything from that.

On a mathematical, marketing or even rational front, what does I matter that the papers sold five million papers per year.  Seriously, who cares or is in any way influenced by such a line?

As you can see the first punch was thrown by the Cork News who knew a thing or two about infringing the ABC rules having done so three times in six months. Actually in May of this year they News lost their ABC certification for a month (after a third ruling against them) as the ABC were unhappy with the papers interpretation of their rules.