Tag: PPA

Business-to-business magazines that depend on doorstep distribution could suffer under plans to end price controls on press postage, the Periodical Publishers’ Association (PPA) has warned. The current Presstream system, which forces Royal Mail to keep prices low for subscription-based magazines, will be unregulated from April 2006 under proposals from the postal services regulator, Postcomm. Postcomm said it believed publishers would be protected from soaring prices because there was sufficient competition in the market to keep charges low.

But Ian Locks, PPA chief executive, said: “The competitive playing field for the Presstream service is set within the context of the postal delivery of magazines.

Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier has announced an agreement between Royal Mail and the PPA on size-based pricing. Speaking at the PPA’s CEO Conference, Crozier said that the two organisations had reached an agreement on the last outstanding issue that had divided the pair. This concerned the tolerance threshold of the surface of a mailing piece of 10mm thickness or above, where if the threshold was exceeded the item would be classed as a packet rather than a large letter, resulting in a substantial increase in costs. The PPA has succeeded in convincing the Royal Mail to increase this threshold from 4mm to 5mm.

Magazine publishers have won a significant victory against the Royal Mail, after plans to double postage prices if titles were considered too stiff to fit through letterboxes were shelved this week. The win for the Periodical Publishers’ Association follows intense lobbying in recent months after the Royal Mail unveiled proposals to give frontline staff the option to impose extra charges determined by the flexibility of a magazine. Magazine bosses were concerned that plans would massively increase postage costs as large numbers of titles carry cover mounts and supplements.