Air Business, the British-based periodical and direct mail subsidiary of Ireland’s An Post, has signed up as strategic sponsor with the Periodical Publishers Association for a third year.
Read MoreUK-based Air Business has won the contract to become the Periodical Publishers Association’s (PPA) new strategic partner for global distribution.
Read MorePPA has highlighted the continued importance of the mail channel to publishers’ business models and future viability, as part of its response to the postal regulator’s Strategy Review. The findings of the review will help Postcomm frame its regulatory strategy in the lead up to 2010 and beyond.
In its response, PPA said that under a status quo scenario, continued overall growth in mail volumes was projected from the publishing sector. However, given the price sensitivity of magazine traffic it stressed that this growth was dependent on Postcomm ensuring that any changes, especially changes in pricing structures, were manageable for users both in terms of scale and timeframes.
PPA said it was supportive of Postcomm’s vision for achieving effective competition, of which the key elements will be customer choice, product development and innovation, and reducing the barriers to entry.
In its response PPA also took the opportunity to highlight publishers’ serious concerns about Royal Mail’s plans to introduce zonal pricing, indicating that it was likely to have a significant impact on publishers’ business models and could also significantly curtail the development of competition in the postal market.
Read MoreThe PPA has won its battle with Postcomm over price controls for magazine delivery service Presstream. Postal regulator Postcomm is to keep the second-class system, Presstream 2, within price controls for a further four years. The removal of Presstream 2 would have significantly increased publishing costs and filtered down to printers, negatively impacting paginations and run lengths.
“This decision enables all subscription orientated magazine publishers to breathe a collective sigh of relief,” said PPA chief executive Ian Locks.
Magazine industry chiefs have claimed a partial victory in their fight to prevent Royal Mail being allowed to make hefty price increases on its distribution products. The Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) has persuaded regulator Postcomm to recommend continued price-capping of Royal Mail’s Presstream 1 product. It feared extra distribution costs would be passed on to consumers via cover price rises. The “next- day” service is used by about a quarter of publishers to distribute trade press across the UK. But the PPA remains concerned that Postcomm will allow the removal of price controls on three-day service Presstream 2, which is used by the remaining publishers.
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