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Domain: misleading advertising?

06 October 2007 in Business, Marketing, Media by Stilgherrian | No comments

Scan of Domain cover, claiming 1.2 million readers

The Sydney Morning Herald’s over-blown real estate section (right) claims 1.2 million readers each week. That’s misleading, surely?

According to Fairfax’s own circulation figures, the Saturday SMH gets 1,176,000 readers from a circulation of 364,000.

OK, rounded to two significant figures, I’m cool with that. But I reckon putting that 1.2 million figure on the cover of Domain is misleading — in the Trade Practices Act sense of the word — ‘cos it implies that the real estate ads get that many readers. I really, really doubt that.

The first thing many (if not most) readers do is fillet the paper, throwing out the classifieds-filled supplements. And if you look in the bins at any suburban railway station on a weekday, you’ll see them chock full’o unopened, unread Domain, Drive, MyCareer and all the other crap they don’t need.

So, Fairfax, misleading advertising? What’s the real readership of the real estate ads?

This morning the Sydney Morning Herald tells us how an economist’s research shows that AC/DC’s Bon Scott wasn’t as good a singer as Brian Johnson. Alas, it’s been exposed as a joke. Will the Herald give as prominent a place to their “correction”?

22 August 2007 by Stilgherrian | No comments