By: Lucia Moses 'Separate Editions' Rule Is Used
As the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures show,
there's not much good news for Sunday papers. In the six months
ended March 31, Sunday circulation declined 1.7%, almost twice
the daily circulation decline of 0.9%.
How has one newspaper managed to beat the trend? The answer lies
in an ABC rule that allows "separate editions" of a paper to be
counted as paid circulation if certain conditions are met.
The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., did just that with
its Sunday Dispatch, a Pittson-based weekly, and jacked up
Sunday circulation by 8,515 copies, or 13.2%, in 1999. As
required by ABC, the Dispatch is labeled as an edition and
bears the city of publication and logo of the mother paper.
The Times Leader's competition, however, cried foul.
William Lynett, co-publisher of Scranton, Pa.'s Tribune
and The Scranton Times, complained that the rule
essentially allows the Times Leader to count a smaller
product with fewer stories and news as part of its paid
circulation. (The Scranton papers are owned by Times-Shamrock
Communications, which also owns The Citizen's Voice in
Wilkes-Barre.)
The rule threatens the credibility of paid circulation in the
minds of advertisers, he said. Lynett took his complaint earlier
this year to the ABC board, which stood firm behind it.
"My competition's only upset he didn't come up with it himself,"
said Times Leader Publisher Patrick McHugh.
It was a circulation executive's curiosity that led to the
discovery. Maybe the lesson for despairing circulation directors
is: Read the ABC rules carefully -- you never known what you
might find.
Lucia Moses (lmoses@editorandpublisher.com) is an associate editor covering business for E&P.
Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.
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