They show that since 1997, ABC has fingered 50 newspapers with inflated circulation numbers and forced them to make significant cuts. Some have been repeat offenders. Not surprisingly, few of them acknowledge anything but clerical error as an explanation for their inflated numbers. A churning experience Under its new rules, ABC's reports on newspaper circulation will also now include numbers for total readership. While this is new for ABC, it's old hat for many newspapers.
Most papers already commission readership studies.
So, rather than compete with their efforts, ABC has simply offered to validate that those studies have been conducted with the same objective criteria. Papers can opt into having their readership numbers reviewed and certified by ABC, or they can continue to report them separately. The benefit of having readership numbers on the ABC form, says the NSA's Harding, is that it provides a standardized measure of readership and offers advertisers one-stop shopping for data on both circulation and total reach of local papers. Harding hopes the industry will agree to further disclosures of circulation and readership patterns. Still, Harding accepts the incremental change.