What is the total number of Belocal publications that were excluded from the average yearly commission payments calculation?
Belocal Franchise · 2025 FDDAnswer from 2025 FDD Document
This historical financial performance representation relates to Commission payments we paid from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025 ("Reporting Period") to 84 BeLocal Publications that were in print as of June 30, 2024 and that had been in print for a full year ("Reporting Publications") and to 88 franchisees who were active franchisees for the Reporting Period ("Reporting Franchisees"). By "in print," we mean that the publication that had been in print for at least one year under the franchisee's management. By "active franchisee" we mean actively involved in in-print activities for at least one Publication for the entirety of the Reporting Period.
We had a total of 135 BELOCAL publication franchises during the Reporting Period. We excluded the Commission payments made to publications that were not in print for the full year. We do not include information for franchisees who have been operating less than one year because we do not consider that information to be as reliable as information from franchisees who have been in operation for at least one year. We also excluded the Commission payments made to publications that were managed by 4 franchisees whose Commission payments were calculated using a different formula than the rest of our franchisees. We do not include in this disclosure document financial information about Publications managed by our affiliate. We do not include in this disclosure document financial information about our franchisees who operate the 13 Test Publications.
Source: Item 19 — FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE REPRESENTATIONS (FDD pages 55–59)
What This Means (2025 FDD)
According to Belocal's 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document, the average yearly commission payments representation includes data from 84 BeLocal publications. During the reporting period, Belocal had a total of 135 publication franchises. Several categories of publications were excluded from the commission payments calculation.
Specifically, Belocal excluded commission payments made to publications that were not in print for the full year. Additionally, commission payments made to publications managed by 4 franchisees whose commission payments were calculated using a different formula were also excluded. Belocal also does not include financial information about publications managed by its affiliate or franchisees who operate the 13 test publications.
Therefore, to determine the number of publications excluded, we start with the total number of Belocal publication franchises (135) and subtract the number of reporting publications (84). This gives us 51 publications. From that 51, we know that 4 franchisees were excluded due to a different commission formula, and 13 test publications were excluded. The remaining 34 publications were excluded because they were not in print for the full year or were managed by an affiliate. In total, 51 publications were excluded from the average yearly commission payments calculation.