'Blade' Launches Bonus Circ Program -- Union Claims Boycott Caused It

By: Joe Strupp Seeking to counter a circulation and advertising decrease, blamed at least in part on a union-led boycott, The Blade of Toledo has launched an unusual bonus circulation program that will give away some 90,000 copies of the paper each week, according to an internal memo obtained by E&P.

The memo, dated Sept. 22, reveals that the program was to begin Oct. 8 and run through the end of the year. In an unusual move, it details that bonus circulation will be given each Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, amounting to 2,800 extra Sunday papers and an average increase of 18,000 weekday copies per day.

"This will allow us to provide advertisers with a great audience during their peak sales period," the memo, written by Circulation Director Dick Fuller, states. "It will also allow us to weather the boycott situation and give us a head start on the March 2007 Pub statement."

Scott Hanson, a senior vice president for auditing services at the Audit Bureau of Circulations, said having so many bonus days together was unusual and would require a separate reporting line in the paper's next ABC publisher's statement. "It is not a normal program," Hanson told E&P when asked about the approach. "To do something where you are going to do the same four days a week for an extended period of time is not the typical bonus day program. Most bonus day programs I am familiar with are more sporadic and tailored to specific events where they want a broader distribution."

Hanson added that "many advertisers look specifically for those occurrences because they may not be big fans of that bonus day number."

Fuller declined to comment on the memo or the program, saying only, "we're looking for ways to aggressively increase circulation like any newspaper at this point." In the recent ABC FAS-FAX Report, released earlier this week, The Blade took a circulation hit even higher than most papers, dropping about 7% on Sundays, to 162,980, and some 6.5% on weekdays, to a 123,095 average.

Blade General Manager Joe Zerbey declined to comment on the program as well, saying "I don't like to comment on internal business." But he stressed that "the bonus day thing is not attached to the boycott at all."

The boycott refers to a campaign launched by the Toledo Council of Newspaper Unions more than two months ago to urge advertisers to stop advertising in the paper and subscribers to cancel subscriptions until new contracts are forged with several unions. The effort started after the paper began locking out some unions on Aug. 20. Since then, five of its eight unions, representing more than 220 employees, have been locked out.

Those five unions are among seven working without a contract, including the Newspaper Guild, the paper's largest union with some 350 members. While guild workers have not been locked out, they remain without a contract and recently agreed to increase their health benefit contributions by an average of $40 per week to offset a shortfall in that fund.

Larry Vellequette, a spokesman for the Toledo Council of Newspaper Unions, claimed the boycott has resulted in "tens of thousands" of cancelled subscriptions and nearly 200 advertisers puling their ads. He said the bonus day program indicates the effort is having an effect.

"They are trying to give the paper away to hide the boycott," Vellequette said. "They are in essence screwing the subscribers who are paying for their subscriptions."

Zerbey disagreed, saying the actual impact of the boycott is much lower than union leaders contend. He said 4,700 cancellations have been specifically linked to the boycott, with 390 of those eventually returning. He also contends that the number of lost advertisers tied to the boycott is 22, most of them auto dealers.

"All of the charges the union is making are false," Zerby said. "We get the paper out on time every day." He also said the paper is willing to bargain with the unions that remain locked out, but they are not willing to meet.