03-06-2010
SKEPTICAL OF EDGAR
"If, indeed, the circulation numbers cited by McClatchy in Edgar Online's report are correct, weekday and Sunday circulation at The Star would have gone up since September 30, 2009, the most recent reporting date by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), the acknowledged authority on circulation statistics.
"I'm skeptical of the Edgar figures, however, because newspaper companies have different methods of computing circulation figures that they use for internal and promotional reports. The most accurate barometer of where The Star and other papers stand will come next month, when ABC reports the figures as of March 31, 2010. (ABC issues two reports a year, for the periods ending September 30 and March 31.)
"Interestingly, according to the ABC's September figures, while The Star trailed the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Sunday circulation -- 401,427 to 307,974 -- it led the P-D in weekday circulation by a count of 216,226 to 213,472. To me, that's an eye opener, considering that as of 2007, the St. Louis Metropolitan Area had a population of about 2.9 million people, compared to about 1.9 million for the Kansas City Metropolitan Area.
"It would appear to me that, based on circulation, The Star is in a shallower hole than the Post-Dispatch. Neither, however, has its head above ground." --- Jim Fitzpatrick
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