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At the Minnehaha County Commission Meeting on Tuesday (FF:9:40), Carol Muller presented this chart when talking about choosing the county’s legal notice newspapers. She seemed to have confused ‘circulation’ with ‘readership’. But throughout the discussion, a couple of commissioners and even an Argus reporter got confused about circulation and readership. Eventually, the reporter, Mr. Walker did clarify that the circulation was different and made an estimate (that was close). According to the SD Newspaper Association website, the AL’s circulation is 26,137 daily and 36,000 on Sundays. Circulation means ‘printed and delivered’ papers. Readership is in reference to basically an assumption that more then one person reads a single printed paper. In other words, the number isn’t based on crap and is made up.

It’s unfortunate that Carol presented the wrong description to the commissioners. Hopefully Walker was abled to clear it up. Either way, a circulation of between 26-36,000 is pretty bad considering a metro area of over 250,000 residents.

8 Thoughts on “There is a difference between ‘Readership’ and ‘Circulation’

  1. The Don on January 4, 2017 at 4:44 pm said:

    Pretty bad indeed. The Argus brand is dying and it is pathetic to witness their daily struggle for relevance. A once-proud institution reduced to largely tabloid journalism.

  2. Does this include online subscriptions?

  3. come on on January 4, 2017 at 6:48 pm said:

    How does the Argus’ circulation compare to the daily papers in Fargo, Sioux City, Omaha, etc?

  4. according to wiki, Fargo Forum has 51,000 daily and 65,000 Sunday. Population 113,600

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forum_of_Fargo-Moorhead

    Omaha World Herald 125K daily, 157K Sunday
    Population 434K

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_World-Herald

  5. The D@ily Spin on January 5, 2017 at 7:32 am said:

    I’d like to see an Argus comeback. They’re valuable for legal notices, obituaries, and crossword. I pick one up once in awhile because I can’t stand the ad intrusions on the web site. There is need to replace Craigslist locally. The paper would better monitor classified preventing fraud. There’s a desperate need for local news and investigative reporting. What if the Argus and Shopping News merged?

  6. Warren Phear on January 5, 2017 at 6:12 pm said:

    I have bitched about the argus for a long time. Stopped the tree kill edition and went to the much cheaper e-edition. Having second thoughts. I think we are going to go back to the daily delivery. They serve way too important a function to let them simply fade away.

  7. They should be on alert. Forum Communications that owns the Fargo Forum and The Mitchell Daily Republic have a presence now in SF. I believe they started printing the Daily Republic last Fall from their SF location. It’s a mysterious place, because Forum first billed the location as a commercial printshop in SF, but getting any employment information about the place is nearly impossible. It’s North of SE Tech.

  8. Forum Communications has a presence in SF is accurate – it’s a print shop, not a newsroom. By the way, it’s not a mysterious place at all. You can call, text, email, or walk-in.
    The Daily Republic has not been printing its paper there since last fall, but rumors are they are getting ready to in the near future.
    The AL can be on alert for a lot things, but I doubt the Daily Republic and paid circulation of around 9,800 is one of them. For very easily obtain employment info, go to the FCC website.

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