HSPA’s advertising service, Midwest Advertising Placements, will begin distributing public notice advertising placed by the state’s Alcohol & Tobacco Commission in July.
Newspapers’ advertising and billing personnel should treat these orders like other advertising placed by MAP. The placement order will come from MAP, and newspapers’ invoice and tearsheet should be returned to MAP, not the ATC.
This is public notice advertising, so the maximum rate newspapers can charge is set by the Indiana legislature. MAP will not request any 5 percent advertising holdback as it does for advertising placed by other clients. Newspapers will receive the same revenue you have already received from these placements.
MAP will invoice the ATC twice a month for ads that it can verify have run through tearsheet collection, so the sooner proof of publication is received by MAP, the sooner newspapers will receive payment.
Why has MAP taken on this duty?
The Alcohol & Tobacco Commission asked during the 2015 legislature to eliminate the publication requirement of hearing notices for each county’s alcohol beverage board. They testified, along with an alcohol industry lobbyist, about the difficulty in placing the notices in a timely fashion, which delayed the ability of those seeking permit approval to open restaurants, bars, etc.
HSPA was able to convince key legislators that the publication should continue to guarantee Hoosiers’ ability to get notice of permit applications in their communities. A compromise was reached to change legal language to shorten the time period for the approval process.
If HSPA successfully removes the burden of placing these notices from the ATC, it’s less likely the state agency will move to eliminate the publication requirement in the future.
