Sid Cato, editor of his self-named Newsletter on Annual Reports, said his 14th annual Producer Poll indicated the per-copy investment—at $2.99 a copy, average, predicated on a print run of "just over half a million copies"—is the lowest in three years.

Cato reported the figure in the October issue—No. 194—of his long-running monthly publication that monitors the corporate annual report industry worldwide.

One of Cato’s findings is that salaries of annual report producers have risen 63% in the 14 years of his survey. He said "average pay per corporate producer has reached a record high: $79,286-$94,000, a $15,000 range, a nearly 13% year-to-year increase."

Separately, he revealed that those whose annuals are indicated Top 10 finishers—the actual results will appear in the November issue of Chief Executive, "magazine by and for corporate chieftains"—average salaries topping $100,000 a year.

An ex-corporate officer, this is his 17th year of monitoring the key corporate communique' full time.