According to the NFRN: The Federation immediately sprang into action after hearing that Immediate Media Company, the new owners of BBC Magazines, were planning to make missing or back issues of its partworks only available to customers ordering them online.
Concerned about the impact on newsagents’ revenues, the NFRN lobbied Immediate Media Company, urging them to think again. And this week the publishing company confirmed that it was reversing its decision.
NFRN National President Kieran McDonnell (pictured) said: “We are delighted that common sense has prevailed and that Immediate Media has vowed to continue to supply copies through the newsstand supply chain sale and not online.”
Meanwhile COMAG, the UK’s biggest partworks distributor, confirmed its commitment to fulfilling retailer requests for back issues.
Wholesale Director Steve Easton said: “It has always been our partworks publishers and our own customer service ethic to fulfil all back orders and we work tirelessly to do so, even when individual issues run low on stock. This will continue to be our position. As partworks are an incredibly important sales and revenue generating category I would urge NFRN members to give upcoming partworks prominent displays and canvass orders from consumers with each sale.”
