Most of you know that my lovely bride owns a small publishing house. We've published magazines, newspapers and books. The advertising revenue base in the print media world has imploded. It affects every media outlet that plays in the print world.
Circulation is everything in determining ad rates. One has to read the Media Kits offered by print outfits carefully. The less scrupulous outlets will try to claim as many as 5 times the readers over the actual number of pieces published. The game they play is: We print 10,000 copies of the magazine (or newspaper) every cycle. Our research tells us that 5 people read every copy due to sharing...
Obviously the true, verifiable number of actual readers is less than 10,000. Just because a company prints 10,000 copies does not mean that all 10,000 copies were sold. Newsstands throw many copies away each cycle. And any claim that "research" concludes 5 readers per copy sold is simply specious speculation...at best.
But such manipulations permit the publisher to pad the circulation numbers, thus inflate the ad rate.
That's the typical game that is played, Standard Procedure, if you will.
Yet the fine folks at the Wall Street Journal took it a step further, according to reports. They actually rigged the game by having copies bought with their own money to pad circulation stats.
And these folks at WSJ claim to be the standard bearer for the Conservative Right.
Not so much.
Trust, but verify. That is the rule in today's world, at a minimum.
Here's the story.
Kerodin
III
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