The Boston Herald’s circulation is dropping, but the tabloid is gaining readers. By contrast, the Boston Globe’s circulation is rising slightly, yet the broadsheet is losing readers.
It doesn’t make much sense, but that’s the conclusion to be drawn from two reports detailing circulation and readership numbers at Boston’s two dailies.
The latest paid circulation numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations in Chicago indicate the Globe has stabilized its print and online sales and may be starting to make some gains. For the six-month period ending in March, the Globe’s Sunday circulation was 365,512, up 2.5 percent compared to the same period a year ago. The Globe’s daily sales were up 2.9 percent to 225,482.
By contrast, the Herald’s paid circulation continued to slide. Daily circulation fell to 108,548, down 12.3 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Sunday circulation was off 6.2 percent to 81,925.
In a story last week, the Herald tried to change the discussion, reporting that readership numbers developed by Scarborough Research of New York indicate the tabloid is picking up readers and the Globe is losing them. For the period March 2011 to February 2012, Scarborough says the Herald had 470,149 total readers, up 14.6 percent from the same period a year before. On Sundays, the Herald readership was 415,132, up 18.6 percent from the year before. Those numbers mean that every copy of the daily Herald that is sold is read 4.3 times and every copy of the Sunday Herald is read five times.
By contrast, daily Globe readership dropped to 555,176, down 11.2 percent, according to Scarborough. Sunday readership fell to 1,025,326, a drop of 7.2 percent. The numbers mean each copy of the daily Globe that was sold was read 2.5 times and each copy of the Sunday Globe was read 2.8 times.
The Herald story, written by Frank Quaratiello, suggested the Herald was winning where it counts, with readers. There was even the obligatory quote from Herald publisher Patrick Purcell praising editor Joe Sciacca and the editorial staff. (The Herald’s numbers differ slightly from the Scarborough numbers I used, which cover a slightly larger geographical area.)
Yet there was no explanation for why the Herald is gaining readers at a time when fewer people are buying the newspaper.
Circulation is a count of papers sold both in print and online. Readership is a count of who reads the print newspaper only. Readership is harder to quantify. It’s based on survey research, asking people what newspaper they read. Haley Dercher, a spokeswoman for Scarborough, says circulation and readership don’t always march in lockstep, in part because they measure slightly different time periods. She also said estimates from readership surveys tend to fall within a range, or margin of error.
“The Herald’s uptick could be a result of the estimate coming in on the high side of the range compared to the last data release,” she said in an emailed statement. “Or it could be a result of an actual marketplace change in consumer behavior. This is why these numbers are best represented over a trend, which helps to neutralize (though not all together remove) the margin of error.”
Looking at the trend over the last three years, readership at the Globe is much bigger than it is at the Herald, particularly on Sundays, but it has been dropping at a more pronounced rate. Daily readership of the Globe is off 27.5 percent over the three-year period, while it’s off 8.7 percent at the Herald. Sunday readership at the Globe is down 13.9 percent, while Herald Sunday readership is actually up 10.7 percent.
