HERALD PLAYING NUMBERS GAME

Times Herald officials have effectively told the Audit Bureau of Circulations and the Morning News that if they don’t play the circulation game the Herald’s way, the Herald won’t play at all.

The Herald has held up official publication of 1980 circulation figures for more than a year and has even hinted it would withdraw from the Chicago-based ABC because it doesn’t like the latest ABC audit results.

Herald officials didn’t care for preliminary ABC figures compiled in March 1980 that showed the News with a 40,000 lead in daily circulation. The Herald questioned the accuracy of the News’ figures and even provided ABC with testimony from former News distributors. Herald publisher Lee J. Guittar told Editor & Publisher that “the News was forcing their dealers to take more papers than they had customers.”

ABC returned the audit results in November, and the Herald again balked at the numbers. The Herald refused to say why, but advertising executives all over town said it appeared the audit showed an even wider gap between the News and the Herald than previously had been reported.

That notion was strengthened by noises Herald advertising reps were making around town. “I’m not too sure that circulation numbers, per se, truly fulfill the needs of advertisers we serve,” Herald President Tom McCartin recently told Ad-week/Southwest.

The Herald even stopped publishing daily circulation figures in the newspaper’s business box. The latest World Almanac figures, however, show the News with a daily circulation of 286,955 to 242,322 for the Herald.