An ancient monster rises from the murky depths of print sales. Bulks (ie copies punters can pick up free in hotels, airports etc) are back. At first sight, if you look at September’s ABC figures, the Guardian, down 5.5% year on year, and the Observer, down 5.9%, seem to be trailing in serious newspaper sales: even though – eschewing bulks – they both increased circulation month on month and, in the Observer’s case, for the sixth straight month in a row.
So how come that the Times was a whopping 12% up over September 2015 and the Telegraph down only 4.7%? Answer: because the Thunderer has added a walloping 53,681 bulks to its bottom line and the Telegraph, which forswore bulks entirely, has suddenly conjured up 20,992 of them. Deal only in sold copies from your newsagent, and the Times is actually down 0.8% on the year and the Telegraph 9.1%.
Now: there are perfectly good sampling reasons for printing a modicum of bulks, just as there are good reasons for sending copies overseas and claiming a sales figure that covers the entire order. ABC rules allow all this. But when digital reach figures are a hot, foggy topic in adland, you’d hope that poor old print would be clear as crystal, not mud.