[Boatanchors] Media Mail, trying again.

[sdaitch at kuw.ibb.gov]

John, 

unfortunately the Domestic Mail Manual doesn't differentiate between current advertisements and older advertisements.  

>From the DMM:
2.2 Content Standards 

Only these items may be mailed at the Media Mail prices: 

a. Books, including books issued to supplement other books, of at least eight printed pages, consisting wholly of reading matter or scholarly bibliography, or reading matter with incidental blank spaces for notations and containing no advertising matter other than incidental announcements of books. Advertising includes paid advertising and the publishers' own advertising in display, classified, or editorial style.
http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/473.htm

Until and unless the DMM is changed, I suppose we either live with it or shade the truth.  Perhaps there might be a campaign to the USPS to amend the DMM to exempt advertising in magazines and catalogs more the ??? number of years.  Then I suppose we'd have to quibble over that number?

One of the real problems the USPS has is with mailers who claim MEDIA MAIL rates for contents that aren't remotely qualifying for the discount, unless the MADE IN CHINA label on the product qualifies for the item being reading material!

73
Sheldon