• by Michael Shields , November 16, 2004

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released the long-awaited results of its audit of the Tribune Company's scandal-tarred Newsday on Tuesday, confirming the magnitude of the discrepancies uncovered by the company's recent internal audit.

The ABC found that Newsday's daily circulation during the 12-month period ending in September 2003 was 481,816, and 574,081 on Sunday.

Those numbers are each roughly 98,000 copies short of what Newsday had originally reported in its publisher's statement--or inflated by 16.9 percent and 14.5 percent, respectively.

Yet the figures are not surprising, given that the newspaper had predicted back in September that when the ABC completed its work, its circulation would fall in the neighborhood of 480,000 and 490,000 daily and 570,000 and 580,000 for Sunday. When the circulation misstatements first came to light, the discrepancy figures were much lower.

Newsday's circulation debacle is perhaps the most notorious of this year's multiple high-profile scandals, given the reports of false record-keeping and illegal dumping of newspapers. The paper has seen a group of advertisers file a lawsuit against the company while enduring a spate of firings, including that of longtime publisher Ray Jansen back in July.

Officially, the ABC audit, which the company termed its "most intensive yet," found that Newsday's circulation had been inflated by 97,783 and 97,739 copies for its daily and Sunday editions, respectively. According to the ABC, auditors went as far as calling individual subscribers to confirm their subscriptions.

There is no single outstanding source of discrepancy within the audit, as figures were found to be incorrect for subscriptions, single-copy sales, and sponsored paid circulation. Percentage-wise, single-copy sales (which include newsstand and hawker sales) were inflated by the largest margin.

Because Newsday had been officially censured by the ABC, it will be subject to twice-a-year audits going forward. According to the ABC, the audits for the periods ending March 2004 and September 2004 will be completed by the end of the year.