Here's how it goes. If more than 50% of the cover price is paid by advertising content, a newspaper is considered "sold". Declining rags such as the NY Times, and Daily News, and Boston Globe, print, then give away many copies of such sold newspapers free of charge in order to maintain inflated circulation numbers. The NY Daily News leads the way, handing out close to 14% of the total number of papers they print, or in the News' case, close to 98,000 copies a day. Now, they MUST get the papers into the hands of consumers or the advertisers will pitch a fit so there's no Dumpster-Delivery going on, or at least there shouldn't be. But the bottom line is the fact that, at 50 cents a paper, the news is losing $49,000 each and every day it hands out it's paper rather than sell them. The publishers don't mind this all that much, because it's biggest rival...the NY Post...sells THEIR daily for 25 cents, and the padded cover price for a News copy more than makes up for such a loss. What DOES matter is the total circulation numbers, and therefore the bragging rights.
The News gives away 14%, the Post about half that many. Look for the next set of numbers to be different as the NY Daily News goes all-out to regain the lead over the Post, and NY'ers love it because that means more freebie papers each and every day.
The Times? Nobody knows for sure. What anyone working around the major fresh seafood markets DOES know, is that each and every morning the NY Times delivery trucks drop off tons of newspapers. For free. They lead the city, indeed the nation, in fish-wrapper circulation, and there isn't anyone close.
No comments:
Post a Comment