There?s an interesting debate going on in media circles about the use of ?bulk sales? to pad circulation numbers for daily newspapers. In the Triad, for example, papers such as the Greensboro News & Record and the Winston-Salem Journal are posting small circulation gains, at least for weekdays, even as circulation nationally and in NC has been dwindling for years.
But it turns out that the gains are really in the form of discounted sales or giveaways to educational institutions, hotels, and the like. In Greensboro, for example, total weekday circulation is reported as up 0.4 percent in the past six months, to about 95,000. But when you subtract the bulk sales, individual subscriptions fell 2.2 percent, to around 84,500.
While there are certainly readers picking up these papers and looking through them, the argument from media buyers is that they are less likely to read thoroughly, and that the pick-up rate is often exaggerated. Both factors should be taken into consideration when coming up with advertising rates, they say.
