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?