MEDIA FORUM: Should publishers be cutting back on bulk sales?(Give-away copies to make circulation look larger to advertisers)

Emap is the latest in a long line of publishers to be caught in a bulks fracas. Is the ABC system still open to abuse? Alasdair Reid investigates.

Bulks just won't go away, will they? This is an issue that has bedevilled publishing for as long as anyone can remember - and will continue to be troublesome while publishers (and some advertisers) continue to have ambiguous feelings about the whole business.

Bulks are, of course, the copies that, for various reasons, publishers give away. Two main reasons, to be precise. The legitimate reason is all about stimulating trial readership, which will, it is hoped, attract genuine paying readers. The slightly less legitimate reason allows publishers to boost the numbers mainly to impress advertisers.

This rarely works and usually succeeds in irritating just as many people as it fools. Over the years, the Audit Bureau of Circulations has acted to minimise that irritation, the general philosophy being that if you can't outlaw bulks altogether then you can at least accurately record the exact number of giveaways.

The trouble is that the system is less than perfect and the headline figure reported by the ABC is still the bulked-up figure. So it is little wonder that squabbles break out. Like last week, when Emap was discovered by the ABC to have broken the rules - and as a result new circulation figures will have to be issued for 14 consumer titles, including Elle, New Woman, The Face, FHM and Red. The worst offenders (if offenders is the right word: it is claimed that the erroneous figures are down to a 'genuine' accounting error) are Arena, Q, Mixmag, Here's Health and Smash Hits.

Is it time to act more decisively on bulks? In particular, is it up to publishers themselves to put their houses in order? The Telegraph Group certainly thinks so. A couple of weeks ago, it radically cut back on bulks - a painful decision because it meant The Daily Telegraph's circulation fell below one million for the first time since 1994.

But Chris White-Smith, the ad sales director of the Telegraph Group, states: 'We have removed all our bulks with the exception of airlines Hotels, health clubs, gyms, they all go. We've also reduced foreign distribution. The truth is that we were shoring up the circulation figure, keeping it above one million, which everyone believed was a psychologically important figure, but effectively we were kidding ourselves. In cutting out bulks and in cutting out foreign copies that weren't being sold, we can put that revenue back into above-the-line promotion with the aim of getting our full price sale above the one million mark again - which is a legitimate ambition.'