Mystery surrounds why Gulf News and its sister magazines were listed as having applied for a circulation audit with BPA Worldwide, despite the newspaper’s claims that it has not joined the auditing firm.
For at least two days last week, Gulf News, from Al Nisr Publishing, and magazines Inside Out, Wheels, Property Week and Aquarius, all published by Al Nisr Media, were individually listed on the BPA’s website as “applicant”.Added detail also showed “Applied for membership Jan 2006” for each of the titles.
But by Tuesday all trace of the titles had been removed from the website, which is managed out of the BPA office in London.
Duleep George, sales and marketing director at Gulf News, claimed that none of the Al Nisr publications had yet applied for a circulation audit, saying the BPA had “goofed up”.
When asked if Gulf News and its related titles had applied to be audited with any company, George replied: “We haven’t applied for any circulation audit.”
Asked to categorically deny that the publisher had signed up with the BPA, George replied: “We haven’t”.
Stuart Wilkinson, director for Europe the Middle East and Africa at BPA Worldwide, claimed the appearance of the newspaper and magazines on its website was a “clerical error”.
He said: “We have spoken to Gulf News about a BPA audit and through a clerical error this “prospect” publication’s name was inadvertently added to our website during a routine update.
“We apologise for any confusion this may have caused and we certainly hope Gulf News will engage our services at some point in the future.”
In the last edition of Campaign George gave the strongest indication yet that the newspaper would undertake a circulation audit, although he claimed no decision on which audit body would be chosen had yet been made.
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