Just because Crikey hasn’t reported much recently on newspaper and
magazine circulation rorts, that doesn’t mean they’re not still going
on.

Here in Australia, the publishing industry circulation body the Audit
Bureau of Circulations is expected to announce new guidelines over the
next few weeks, following an investigation after Crikey’s long and
detailed series of revelations about rorting of audited circulations
among the country’s biggest newspaper and magazine companies.

In the US the rorting is going on unabated – or as the “bible” of the advertising industry Ad Age puts it, it’s a “circulation scandal that is tearing through the industry like ‘an apocalypse’.”

According to Ad Age, “by one estimate, one of every
three of the 300 or so leading consumer magazines that claim rate bases
could be affected; others said the hit could disqualify as many as 2.5
million to 5 million copies previously classified as paid.”

Read the full report here.