The Union-Tribune boldly asserts that 1.15 readers look at its printed edition each week. This is based on data provided by Scarborough Research. The claim has raised many eyebrows, because Audit Bureau of Circulations reported recently that weekly circulation in the most recent reporting period declined 10 percent from a year ago to 242,705 -- about 21% of the claimed 1.15 million readership. The Beverly Hills-based private equity firm that bought the U-T last spring, Platinum Equity, then sent out a mailer confusing things even more. It said that weekly readership was 670,000, which is a long way down from the 1.15 million asserted by the paper. I asked Platinum and it blushingly said that it had incorrectly used the Scarborough numbers for daily readership, not weekly. But that 670,000 daily readership number still looks swollen compared with 242,705 actual circulation.
The Union-Tribune boldly asserts that 1.15 readers look at its printed edition each week. This is based on data provided by Scarborough Research. The claim has raised many eyebrows, because Audit Bureau of Circulations reported recently that weekly circulation in the most recent reporting period declined 10 percent from a year ago to 242,705 -- about 21% of the claimed 1.15 million readership. The Beverly Hills-based private equity firm that bought the U-T last spring, Platinum Equity, then sent out a mailer confusing things even more. It said that weekly readership was 670,000, which is a long way down from the 1.15 million asserted by the paper. I asked Platinum and it blushingly said that it had incorrectly used the Scarborough numbers for daily readership, not weekly. But that 670,000 daily readership number still looks swollen compared with 242,705 actual circulation.