Sending an SoS?

SCOTLAND on Sunday has resorted to an unorthodox interpretation of its National Readership Survey (NRS) figures to mask its flagging readership.

In the current "Christmas Presence" advertisements appearing in Scotsman Publication titles, the Sunday title accurately claims to lead the Sunday Herald by 50,000 readers in Scotland. However, the advert also makes the claim that overall readership is up 2.5% on the last survey period of July 2001-June 2002.

Scotsman Publications' has apparently decided to abandon normal NRS practice of comparing like-for-like by offering up a figure generated by comparing October 2000-September 2001 and the non- mutually exclusive period of July 2001-June 2002.

This technique is not applied to The Scotsman's or Edinburgh Evening News's NRS figures appearing in the same advert.

When you actually compare Scotland on Sunday's total readership figures between October 2000-September 2001 and October 2001- September 2002, the title's total NRS readership is down year-on- year from 272,000 to 247,000 - a 9.2% decline.

For the record, the Sunday Herald's own year-on-year National Readership Survey performance shows a 9% increase from 167,000 to 186,000.

Copyright 2002 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
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