Bryan O’Brien who served as the ABC’s Chairman for three years from 1988 -1991 recently passed away. O’Brien served on the ABC’s General Committee from December, 1982 as a newspaper representative before being elected as Chairman.

Dr Stephen Hollings, ABC’s Chairman commented, “We are very appreciative of Bryan’s tenure on both the General Committee and as Chairman of the ABC. In the role of Chairman he made a significant and long-lasting contribution to the media industry. Saturday figures were broken out from Monday to Saturday averages to provide greater transparency in newspaper audits while changes were made to the exclusions policy to improve the calculation of the average net paid sales figure. Our thoughts are with his family at this sad time.”

O’Brien oversaw changes to the rules including permitting daily newspapers and national newspapers to exclude issues published on officially gazetted holidays. He also put forward the proposal to separate Monday to Friday circulation from Monday to Saturday for regional dailies as well metropolitan and national newspapers.