The New York Times gains an unknown percentage of its national circulation from university and even high school students who are required to purchase it, or whose student fees are used to pay for "free" copies distributed on campus. My own 16 year old home—schooled son, who takes some of his courses in local community colleges, sports a subscription to the Times because it is a requirement of one of his classes.

The University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, one of the nation's largest campuses, has just turned down an offer from the New York Times to distribute "free" copies on campus in return for $200,000  in student fees. The proximate cause of the refusal is the fear of the campus daily newspaper that its own circulation and advertising reveue would be adversely affected.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation, the industry—controlled body which certifies newspaper circulations as being "paid," has been rocked by several major scandals in which major member papers, including Newsday, the Chicago Sun—Times, and the Dallas Morning News have successfully defrauded advertisers for years wit phony circulation claims. The ABC's rules defining "paid circulation" are very, very loose. I suspect, but do not definitively know, that schemes such as that the UNiversity of Minnesota turned down would be counted as paid circulation, simply because some money changes hands.

It would be exceedingly interesting to know what portion of the NYT's circulation is accounted for by involuntary purchasers in school.

Thomas Lifson  11 24 04