How do the major newspapers and magazines falsify their audited circulations in order to deceive advertisers? Count the ways.

A Melbourne reader writes:

Students at Melbourne Uni are given next to free access ($5 and $20 a year) to the Herald-Sun and The Age .

And from Queensland:

I don’t know if it is still a News Ltd practice, but a few years ago
every Queensland state school teacher would receive a copy of TheCourier-Mail
on their desk every school day for a few gold coins (teachers were
upset when the yearly fee was raised from $2 to $5 or $10 a couple of
years ago). When you think of how many teachers there are in the state
– and how many of these “subscribers” don’t collect their rag each day
– you have to wonder how overly inflated the Courier ‘s
circulation figures are. It also raises the question of which other
government departments receive massively discounted copies of the
Courier, or other publications.

And another report from Adelaide:

Retired employees of The Advertiser
get a free copy home delivered. My old journalist mate still gets his
tossed on to the front lawn every morning. His son tosses it into the
wheelie bin. The old codger has been in a nursing home for four years.

A Crikey reader with printing contacts writes:

The
ABC system is the biggest rort known to mankind. You can delete names
here if you like, but I know these because I saw the print report at
[name of printer]. I questioned the number written on the top of the
pile and was assured the number was correct. [Publishing company]
claims sales under the ABC of more than 60,000 for [name of magazine],
but only 35,000 covers are printed…