The Subscription Average report shows how many paid, free and total subscriptions each of your products had over a period, both as an average across the period and as counts at each month end. It also shows what you billed and what you gave away in discounts. Publishers use it for circulation statements (opplagsoppgave in Norway, upplaga audits in Sweden) and as a general check on the subscription base. You generate it in the portal under Reports, on the Subscriptions card, choosing the period with the From and To fields. If you want one row per plan rather than one row per product, set Group rows by to product_option under Options before generating. The report only reads your data, so you can generate it as often as you like without affecting anything.
What the report contains
The file downloads as a CSV (a plain spreadsheet file that Excel and Google Sheets open directly) and contains four sections. Each one starts with a title row naming it, so you can see where one table ends and the next begins.
1. Period summary. The first table has one row per product (or per plan, if you grouped by product_option) and a TOTAL row at the bottom.
Period average paid subscriptions is the number your circulation statement asks for. It is the average across every single day in the period, so a subscription that was active for half the period counts as a half. This is the time-weighted average the Norwegian MBL rules require.
Period average paid subscribers counts people instead of subscriptions. Someone with two subscriptions counts twice in the subscriptions column but once here. The TOTAL for this column counts each person once even if they subscribe to several products, so it can be lower than the rows added together.
Period average free subscriptions is the average number of subscriptions at 100% discount, such as staff and complimentary subscriptions. These are excluded from the paid columns, which is exactly what the circulation rules require.
Period average total subscriptions is paid plus free.
Billed revenue excl. VAT, Total discount amount and Discount % of gross show what you billed in the period, what you gave away in discounts, and the discount share of the gross amount. These are the inputs for the 15% discount rule (see below).
A row with the SKU "ADJUSTMENT" and negative amounts is a refund. Refunds get their own row rather than being hidden inside a product's numbers, and the TOTAL row accounts for them.
2. Month-end snapshots. The second table has one row per product per month end, in date order, with a TOTAL row for each date. The columns Active paid subscriptions, Active free subscriptions and Total active subscriptions show the standing counts at the end of that day. Use this table when someone asks "how many subscribers did we have on 30 June". It is the equivalent of the month-end attachments that systems like Infosoft and Info-Press produce for circulation audits.
3. Discount levels. This section has one row per discount percentage (1 to 99), counting how many subscriptions were billed at that level during the period. A subscription billed at two different levels appears at both, so the rows do not add up to your subscriber count. A "first month for 5 kr" campaign shows up here as a large group at a high percentage.
4. Parameters. The last section lists the exact dates, publication and grouping the report was generated with, so anyone reading the file later can see precisely what it covers.
Using it for a circulation statement
The report gives you the numbers. The statement form itself is still yours to fill in.
The Period average paid subscriptions per product is your average for the period. You assign each product or plan to the statement's categories (Papir, Digital/eAvis and Komplett in Norway) yourself, since only you know which of your products is which.
Free subscriptions are already excluded from every paid column. The circulation rules do not ask for your free count. Free copies are added by the auditor using a fixed formula based on your paid totals.
For the 15% discount rule, use Billed revenue excl. VAT and Total discount amount from the TOTAL row. If Discount % of gross is below 15, no reduction applies. If it is above, the rules describe a reduction calculation your auditor will recognise.
The Month-end snapshots table serves as the supporting attachment showing the standing at each month end.
Good to know
The free count looks lower than expected for early months. If your free and complimentary subscriptions were imported from a previous system, they only exist in Sesamy from the import date onwards. Months before that show fewer free subscriptions than you actually had. The paid columns are not affected.
The numbers differ slightly from the Subscriptions by Date report for older months. Subscriptions by Date was recorded live each day, while this report recalculates history from today's data, so subscriptions that were later deleted or cancelled retroactively are not counted. For recent months the two match exactly.
A person with access through an external source is not counted. The report counts subscriptions (contracts). Access granted through external sources, without a contract behind it, does not appear in any column.
Generating the same report with the same dates returns the same file. If you need fresh numbers for the same period, delete the old report first using the bin button on its row, then generate it again.
Norwegian and Swedish terms
If you work with the circulation forms in Norwegian or Swedish, this is how the report's columns map to the terms used there.
In the report | Norwegian (MBL/LLA opplagsoppgave) | Swedish (TS/Kantar Media upplagerevision) |
Period average paid subscriptions | gjennomsnittlig betalt opplag (snittopplag, opplagstall) | genomsnittlig betald upplaga (snittupplaga) |
Period average free subscriptions | gratisabonnement (gratister) | gratisabonnemang |
Billed revenue excl. VAT | bokførte abonnementsinntekter | fakturerade prenumerationsintäkter |
Total discount amount | samlet rabattbeløp (grunnlaget for 15 % rabattgrensen) | total rabatt |
Month-end snapshots | opplag per siste dato i måneden | upplaga per månadsskifte |
Free copies added by the auditor | frieksemplarer | friexemplar |