Yesterday’s circulation rorts story triggered a flood of responses:

A Crikey reader writes:


Check out Fairfax’s subsidisation of the dog Sun
Herald. A reader called to cancel her Sun Herald,
subscription but wanted to renew the SMH subscription for six days a week for a
year. She was told the price was $338 for the six issues
of SMH weekly but if she also subscribed to receive the Sun Herald the price was
$312 for the lot for the year. Is Fairfax not only giving the Sun Herald away,but
actually paying subscribers to get it? If the subscriber is an NRMA member she would get the package for $299 a
year, but the package had to include the Sun Herald as well at that price.

There
is no separate package subsidised by NRMA for only six days of SMH. Is this third line forcing? How come the seven day package is so much cheaper? So you get the Sun
Herald for nothing as well as getting the SMH for less. What does this this say
to Sun Herald advertisers, that the paper is so unwanted it is not only given
away for these subscribers, but readers have to be bought? If you phone Fairfax subscriptions you can check this out for
yourself. And what is being paid by NRMA members for this deal? Why is the Sun Herald an obligatory part of the NRMA members’
package? Does it mean that as a result Sun Herald does not criticise NRMA? Does this deal
extend to the SMH as well?

Sarah writes:
I work at the western end of Bourke St (Melbourne) and a number of my
work colleagues make use of the Telstra Dome public car park across the
way. Every weekday – in addition to a car park they (often
begrudgingly) receive a complimentary Age newspaper. It may only be a
few shuffles from The Spencer St bunker, and contain only
approx 200 spaces, but surely every little fillip counts?

A subscriber writes:
Another to add to questionable sales
for The Age. Every person that parks at Telstra
Dome Mon – Fri – gets an Age included with their parking fee – they employ at
least 4 people to hand out free Ages every morning, around 800 every day. It must cost them a fortune – but on
a falling circulation of 190000 I suppose 0.5 of a percent increase is worth it.

A subscriber writes:

The Cairns Post, a Murdoch
owned paper has been doing this for years. Now they seem to have a friend in
NIE (News in Education) with hundreds of papers daily being distributed to
schools. I know of one school that had a classroom full of unopened bundles of
papers. Also not deducting the
returns helps to keep the numbers up as always happens in our neck of the
woods.


The wombat writes:
From my observation, there are plenty of leftovers from the Fitness First
SMH giveaways by the end of lunchtime, and presumably many that are taken are
not read (today I found in my gym bag the SMH which I picked up last Friday at
the gym – unread, unopened and sadly forgotten). Thousands (probably around 15,000) of Sunday Telegraphs were given away at
the conclusion of the Sydney Running Festival at the Sydney Botanic Gardens.


Circulation Auditor writes:
Crikey, you have quite properly drawn attention for some time now to
newspaper and magazine circulation rorts, including again today in the
case of Fairfax. How is it going to be at this company if the new
chairman, Ron Walker, brings to Fairfax his Grand Prix crowd-counting
techniques from Albert Park? Whoopee!