From NEWSMAX :
…The deal approved by the British ABC boosted the Journal’s circulation in ways that aren’t allowed in the U.S. Under the agreement, ELP bought 12,000 copies of the The Wall Street Journal Europe at 1 euro cent (1.4 cents) each, compared with the 3 euro newsstand price, and the papers counted as paid circulation.
The Wall Street Journal Europe’s bulk discounted purchases, by ELP and other partners, accounted for 46,137, or 62 percent of its total average daily circulation of 74,800, according to ABC U.K.’s latest certificate on the newspaper. The Audit Bureau in the U.S., which isn’t affiliated with the British group, doesn’t count discounted bulk purchases as paid circulation…
“If I were an advertiser, I’d be concerned about how many of these copies are being read,” Rick Edmonds, a media analyst for the Poynter Institute, said in an interview. “If there are really only about 30,000 people who are paying for the paper, that’s not bad. But that’s circulation for a very small town.”
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EDITOR: The apparent implication of the above is that News Corp. owned Wall Street Journal was knowingly paying it “business partner” ELP and others to purchase and throw away 62 percent of its European circulation, thus puffing up its circulation figures and defrauding advertisers! Cynics might say that one could expect little less of right wing conservative Rubert Murdoch, already embroiled in scandals in England for illegal activities.
The conservative NewsMax, a direct competitor of The Wall Street Journal, has broke the story, albleit in a relatively subdued manner.
