An organization known as the Audit Bureau of Circulations (called the
"ABC") makes sure that no publication claims a higher circulation than
it actually has. Many of the publications themselves make surveys to
find out how much money their readers have, and how they spend it.
An organization known as the Audit Bureau of Circulations (called the "ABC") makes sure that no publication claims a higher circulation than it actually has. Many of the publications themselves make surveys to find out how much money their readers have, and how they spend it. There are independent organizations that make surveys of the same kind. Every magazine and newspaper guarantees that each issue will sell a certain number of copies, or more, and if fewer copies are sold, it has to give some of the advertiser's money back.
The cost of advertising in a newspaper or magazine depends on how much space the ad occupies. The page is always considered to be divided into columns, and each column is measured by the "agate line" or "line." There are fourteen lines to the inch. Each line costs so much, depending on the circulation. If an advertiser takes "a fourteen-line ad," it means his ad is one inch deep and one column wide, and if the price is one dollar per line, he pays fourteen dollars for it. Advertising in big magazines and newspapers is expensive. A full page in a Sunday comic section in big newspapers throughout the country will cost an advertiser about $30,000, in addition to the thousands of dollars he spends preparing the advertisement itself. Advertising in big magazines, such as Life, costs almost as much.
A monthly magazine charges more than a weekly magazine or a daily paper with the same circulation, because the monthly magazine stays around the house longer before the next issue comes, and there is more chance that someone will see the ad. Most magazines are read by the whole family, so when a publication has a circulation of, for example, 3,000,000 copies, they actually have as many as 12,000,000 or 15,000,000 readers. These figures help them to persuade
