NEW YORK - The US newspaper industry's Audit Bureau of Circulations said it will change the way it counts paid circulation to provide marketers with more useful information.
New reporting standards will count newspapers sold at any price and create a separate category for copies distributed at hotels and purchased by businesses, Schaumburg, Il.-based ABC said yesterday. Future audits will also specify whether a newspaper is sold at a newsstand or through home delivery.
The changes, to be introduced over three years, come a week after the ABC combined online readership with print circulation to create "net combined audience." ABC used the new method of counting to show advertisers that audiences extend beyond print.
Circulation at 609 daily papers fell 2.6 percent to 40.7 million in the six months through September compared with the year-ago period, ABC said last week. Of those, 163 newspaper websites logged 164 million visitors monthly.
