Customer Support Ruling

Measurement of Advertising Matter
Updated February 2001

PS-012 (707.17.5.2)

This Customer Support Ruling discusses the methods that can be used to measure the advertising portion of a Periodicals publication.

A publisher of a Periodicals publication may determine the total advertising and nonadvertising portions by column inches, square inches, pages, or by any other recognized units of measurement as provided by Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) 707.17.5.2.

The method used for measuring both the advertising and nonadvertising content of a Periodicals publication must be the same in all instances.  Thus, for example, it would not be permissible to determine the advertising portion of a publication by measuring column inches and the nonadvertising portion by measuring square inches.

When the total advertising and nonadvertising portions are computed on the basis of the printed column inches per page or on the basis of the printed portions measured in square inches, the marginal space should be disregarded.  In either case, the marginal space will take its proportionate share in the percentage of advertising and nonadvertising matter arrived at for the whole issue.  The border of a page, space between columns, and space between advertisements are neither advertising matter nor matter other than advertising.

In determining the advertising and nonadvertising percentages, one full page of advertising material must equal the same measurement as one full page of nonadvertising material regardless of the amount of blank spaces between each advertisement on a page or between each nonadvertising write-up on a page.  Blank pages, for which no consideration was received by the publisher, are counted as neither advertising nor nonadvertising.  In addition, such pages may not be added to meet the 24-page requirement of DMM 707.6.4.1a.  Moreover, blank space may not be used to meet the 25% nonadvertising requirement for supplements in 707.3.3.5a.

(Signed)
Sherry Suggs
Manager
Mailing Standards
United States Postal Service
Washington DC 20260-3436