Here’s a story that may strike fear into the hearts of the bosses at The Australian in Sydney.

News Ltd’s London stablemate, News International, will stop distributing so-called bulks or copies sold for a nominal amount to hotels, airlines, etc, which give them to clients as complimentary offerings.

The copies are marketing ploys by the publishers and the hotels and airlines and are aimed at business and high net-worth customers. That’s why tabloids are not handed out free.

Here, complimentary copies of The Australian are handed out in leading hotels in the major cities and at Qantas’ business-class facilities,  on board and at airport lounges.

Some estimates suggest 6000-8000 copies of The Australian a day might be covered by these deals.

The Fairfax papers, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review are all handed out to varying degrees. The Age, in particular, is freely distributed at various AFL venues in winter in Melbourne.

News International is cutting these virtually free copies to lower its print runs and save on paper, ink and distribution costs.

US hotel chains, led by the Marriott, dropped USA Today earlier this year (they were bought on a similar basis) and this resulted in the paper’s sales slipping to well under two million a day and well behind News Corp’s Wall Street Journal. In fact USA Today’s sales fell 17%, or about 400,000 to 1.9 million copies. Much of the fall was put down to the decision by the hotel groups.

The News International decision will reduce the circulation figures for the Times and Sunday Times, but not the Murdoch tabloids, such as the Sun (because no one wants to hand them out as complimentary copies).

The move is expected to put pressure on the publishers of The Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Financial Times, Independent newspapers and the Daily Mail whose publishers also distribute bulks.

The Guardian said that “In the most recent ABC figures, for September, bulks accounted for 47,878 or 8.4% of the Times’ overall sale of 571,506; and 16,543 or 1.4% of the 1,207,141 copies of the Sunday Times sold.

“News International said it had served notice on partners and wholesalers with which it has supply agreements for bulks.

“Because of contract notice periods, the change will begin to take effect in the ABC’s January figures, the company said.

“News International is committed to producing the best journalism and believes in charging a fair price for that journalism,” the company added. “We have taken this decision to reflect the value we believe our newspapers offer.”

The Guardian said its owners stripped bulks from the sales figures for the Guardian and Observer papers earlier this year.