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A comment on New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers. Parent comment

Re:New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital... by manigandham on Thursday August 09, 2018 @03:20AM (#17722204)
These numbers are usually completely off. There is no standard basis or reliable determination for them, and it's in every publishers interests to quote as high as they can get away with.

Buying traffic from cheap ads can easily get you millions of "readers" who just hit the page from various IPs and leave some cookies around.

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Re:New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital... by wyattpeak on Thursday August 09, 2018 @03:27AM (#17722235)
That's not true. Basically all periodicals' circulation numbers are independently audited, because nobody will buy ads from them without an audited figure. Only the very smallest fly-by-night publications self-audit.
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Re:New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital... by manigandham on Thursday August 09, 2018 @04:26AM (#17722484)
Readers != circulation. Many hotels, coffee shops, airports, libraries, offices, and hundreds of other business subscribe, but it has nothing to do with who actually reads anything.

Also that number is mostly quoting digital viewers, which are not audited at all.

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