The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-21
QUALITY IN CIRCULATION
As Compared With Mere Quantity
 Address at Sphinx Club Dinner.

at the Waldorf Astoria by Herbert F
 Gum of the Brooklyn Eagle: - take it that the question we are con , sldering is the comparative value o
 quality and quantity in newspaper cir culatlon as relating to newspaper ad Vertising, The advertising man as ;
 rule is pretty shrewd individual, ant if he has had experience is generally abl'
 to judge correctly those mediums whicf
 produce the best results. As it is very
 difficult to trace direct results from ad
 vertising in any particular paper, it is Iof the utmost importance that adver'
 tisers should be able to know what pa
 pers reach the class of readers who are
 most apt to become interested in the
 announcements which they make
 I would not make light of papers hav-
 ing large circulations, but quantity
 alone counts for very little. There are
 merchants who seek to get into the
 homes by having inserted into reputable
 newspapers their advertisements print
 ed on separate sheets, and, while large numbers of these inserts are thus cir lculated, 1t is doubtful whether that kind of circulation is of much value. The advertiser is seeking the individual
 buyer, not merely the individual read-
 CT, but the man who. reading the pa per, has the means to become pur-
 chaser if persuaded that he desires the
 articles offered for sale. Five thousand
 Indians on the western plains might read an advertisement of the Stenway
 piano and not one would be sold a9 a result of that publicity. Ten thousand l factory girls might be impressed with the attractive announcement of Brother | Daniels Chicago limited train, yet not a single ticket would be purchased by them. Lord Timothy Dexter took a cargo of warming pans to the West h. | dies. He could not sell them. He had taken them to the wrong place. He did. | however, remove the covers and sold them as sugar scoops. It is ofhthe ut- most importance to reach the people who can buy. In most cases the papers having the largest circulation are those which sell for the lowest price. It is but fair to assume that the people who buy a paper because it is cheap, in the ma- jority of instances, are those who are limited in their means. They are people who must have the necessities of life and not the luxuries. The bulk of ad- vertising is for the sale of luxuries and not necessities.
 Newspapers are made for the public. They must cater to the requirements of every reader If they do not, they are without readers. The editors and pub fishers who can best understand the public wants and meet them are con- ductors of the most successful jour- nals; but no one newspaper can meet the requirements of an entire conmun- ity any more than one religion would suit all classes of people or one politi- cal party enroll all voters under it's banner. Different classes of individuals require different kinds of newspapers As the expert fisherman knows the kind of bait to use for the particular kind of fish he is angling for, so the publisher must know the kind and quality of pa- per to make for the constituency he is seeking. It is natural that every pub fisher should desire as large a constit uency as possible, but in his anxiety for numbers he may find that he Is gaining in readers among one class of people and losing readers from another He may add to his circulation In quantity but lose in quality. He may catch more jelly fish but not so many trout.
 Undue stress has been placed on the value of large circulation; even some of our good friends among the advertising agents have sought to reduce advertis- ing to an exact science and to fix rates for advertising on the basis of so much | per line per thousand of circulation, | You cannot measure newspaper adver- | Using as you do cordWood. You cannot | fix rates that could be made applicable | to all papers, because conditions are so l different An influential paper of 5000 | circulation in small town might be of | more value to an advertiser than pa- | per of ten times that circulation in large city The quality of the paper and the character and standing of the | people who read 1t are factors, in my of far more importance than the question of how many papers are printed.
 It is not so much the number of pa- pers which go out of the press room which should be carefully examined, s the fact where those papers so to and who are the people who read them Are papers hastily read and thrown away? Are they purchased to help pass away few moments ride on car or are they delivered in the homes to be carefully 'ead by each member of the family? Are they read as we would read hand pill or are they read for information md instruction, to become the source If our knowledge of contemporaneous fife? The higher the mere literary quail ty of newspaper, the smaller will be ts circulation. The masses of the peo- ,le do not require such a paper nor 'ould they appreciate it. It is not nec- | ssary, however, for newspaper to be- ome pedantic or scholarly to have a ligh grade of excellence, but it is pos ible for paper to be ably edited, to be llert and enterprising, carry all the lews. to use such illustrations as will , make clearer the text, to be up-to-date n every particular and yet maintain hat high degree of quality that will / ring to it such a large number of read IFS that advertisers will generously se its columns and the revenues of the . aper will be such that the best talent l nd the finest mechanism can be em- loved in the production of it. Yet such paper must necessarily be limited in irculation. To meet the requirements f it's readers, it must carry all the
 
 III z2zZ u -