Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Why circulation
is irrelevant
H
ow many people read newspapers, magazines, airline televisions, and other electronic news sources, the
and websites? And who are they? These have long official numbers are becoming even less useful.
been critical questions for advertising executives At this stage, it is safe to say that circulation is almost dead
and communications professionals trying to reach the biggest as a meaningful concept. To try to capture the new multi-
or most appropriate audience. But while the circulation figures media, multi-channel, multi-device reality, publishers and
of international publications such as the New York Times, the broadcasters are developing new metrics that offer a better
Handelsblatt, and the Financial Times may appear to be reflection of their readership. CNN recently claimed leadership
impressively specific, authoritative, and objective – offering in each of the following categories: “Total TV and web
detailed data on incomes, spending patterns and education consumers,” “TV/web multi-platform integrators,” “Total
levels – they have never been as reliable as they appear to be. (online) usage minutes,” number of “video streams,” “Mobile
And in the age of the BlackBerry, Kindles, home computers, web users,” “Mobile TV viewers,” “Audio podcasts,” and “Video
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podcasts.” Scarborough Research and the Newspaper bulk circulation claims by newspapers, and a number of UK
Association of America (NAA) have joined forces with the titles have reportedly decided to eliminate bulk sales from
Audit Bureau of Circulations to launch “Audience FAX,” their calculations of paid circulation, substantially reducing
which measures a newspaper’s weekly print readership, sales figures.
online readership, and the combined print and web readership. By these measures, the circulation of many of the most
In June 2009, The Media Audit, venerated brand names in the media is
a Houston, Texas-based syndicated the seemingly obvious steadily sinking. According to the Pew
media ratings service currently covering implication… is that Research Center’s Project for Excellence
more than 80 metropolitan markets, communications in Journalism (PEJ), circulation for
released data looking at the top United professionals should daily US newspapers fell 4.6 per cent
States newspapers’ “reach” in their direct less attention to and 4.8 per cent for Sunday editions in
respective markets. The concept of the old titans of the the six months ending September 30,
“reach” combines unduplicated print mainstream media. but 2008, compared to the same period a
and internet audiences. According to that conclusion does year earlier. Since 2001, daily newspaper
The Media Audit, the New Orleans’ not really stand up to circulation has fallen 13.5 per cent and
Picayune Times and its companion site, closer scrutiny Sunday paper circulation has declined
nola.com, reach 83 per cent of their 17.3 per cent.
overall market. That downward trend has, furthermore, been accelerating.
The problem is that these next-generation metrics are still In the six-month period ended in March, circulation dropped
not yet broadly accepted in the US or anywhere else. “A procedure another seven per cent compared with the previous year,
for measuring audience penetration levels for both printed and according to figures released by the Audit Bureau of
online newspapers that is both accurate and accepted by business Circulations. (One exception to this broader trend is the Wall
advertisers has not yet been devised,” the Bundesverband Street Journal, which reported a gain, albeit only 0.61 per cent,
Deutscher Zeitungsverleger (the Federation of German in circulation in the six-month period between October 2008
Newspaper Publishers) concluded in a 2008 report. and March 2009, according to ABC figures). (See Figs.1 and
2 overleaf).
circulation: myth and reality The seemingly obvious implication of these numbers is
So what to do? Before answering this question, it is useful to that communications professionals should direct less attention
start with some basic definitions. In the US and the United to the old titans of the mainstream media. But that conclusion
Kingdom, “paid circulation” is defined by the Audit Bureau of does not really stand up to closer scrutiny. For one thing, the
Circulations as the number of newspapers paid for by an concept of circulation has never adequately captured the size
individual reader or distributed via “specialized channels.” For of a given publication’s “audience” – the number of people
example, as of March according to figures released by the Audit who actually read a newspaper or magazine. That is where
Bureau of Circulations, the circulation for the weekday New outfits like Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI) in the
York Times was 1.039m. Of that group, 65 per cent receive the US and the UK’s National Readership Survey (NRS) come in.
Times at home, 21 per cent bought it on newsstands, and 14 Each conducts tens of thousands of interviews a year to gauge
per cent is via “bulk sales.” Bulk sales are the copies newspaper reading habits, including how many people read an individual
groups sell for a nominal fee to airlines, hotels, gyms and issue of a magazine. According to most recent data from MRI,
restaurants (which may give them away for free). They are for example, an average issue of BusinessWeek is read by 5.28
controversial, because the publisher need only haul more adults and has a total audience of 4.67m readers, down slightly
copies to the nearest airline terminal to boost circulation. from the 4.7m readers the magazine had in 2008. (Compare
Indeed, in the UK ABC is conducting a “forensic review” of this to a paid circulation figure of roughly 900,000.) In
statistics is misleading.
The statistics are impressive, to be sure, but as the Pew
fig.2: circulation
Center’s PEJ State of the News Media 2008 report points out, Audience (000s)
the new online standard – unique monthly visitors – does not
2004
measure intensity of reader engagement. For example, readers 2009
are all funky,” adds Alan Mutter, a former newspaper editor BusinessWeek
995
and venture capitalist who now writes Reflections of a 882
Newsosaur, an influential media blog. “Different people get
different counts from the same website all the time.” Mutter Source: MRI
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is important to charge people for circulation is to validate the which buys advertising space for clients including Xerox,
passion of your audience for what you produce. That’s the MetLife, Chevron, and Accenture. “To reach the C-suite, the
argument for charging for content on the web,” he says. In people who are the decision-makers, there are still only so
addition to 20m visitors per month, WSJ.com claims 1.079m many places to reach them.”
paying subscribers. The Financial Times website, FT.com, has Or to put it another way: Don’t let the declining circulation
117,000 paying subscribers (up 18 per cent in the first half of numbers at the traditional business outlets mislead you into
2009) in addition to its 1.4m non-paying registered users believing that their influence is declining. While the data is
worldwide and average monthly unique users of 9.8m. difficult to interpret, the opposite may in fact be true.
circulation versus influence Michael France is a Par tner in Brunswick’s New York office. A former US
attorney, he ser ved as a Senior Editor at BusinessWeek where he oversaw
There is little doubt that so-called “influencers” are migrating the magazine’s coverage of management issues and legal affairs.
air. Brunswick’s own research with investors and analysts 2007 2008
48.1 per cent reach, USA Today, with 48 per cent, and ABC 23 million 27.5 million
World News Tonight, with 44.4 per cent. According to Erdos New York Times
& Morgan’s 2009 study of the reach of digital media among 9.5 million 12.5 million
Chiefly, the fact that new online news outlets are viewed with
ABC News
more skepticism than their established print, broadcast and 8 million 8 million
cable counterparts. According to Pew’s 2008 State of the News
Media report, of the seven online news organizations it CBS News
8 million 8 million
evaluated, none is viewed as highly credible by even a quarter
of online users able to rate them. USA Today
7 million 7.5 million
What does that mean? Plus ça change, says George Janson,
Source: comScore
Managing Partner and Director of Print at Mediaedge:cia,