Scott Dorsey wrote:

Dan Popp wrote:
John,
Please explain how a magazine with zero readers would retain advertisers.

By faking their distribution figures, which is what some of the free
magazines in the past have done. The more reputable ones have independant
auditing of subscribers by BPA or some similar organization but not all of
them do. And the auditing is no guarantee.
--scott

Scott,
I'm sure you didn't mean that a magazine with absolutely no circulation could
fake a readership of hundreds of thousands and keep up this fraud forever. I
don't doubt that shenanigans go on, but as Lincoln said, "You can't fool all
the people all of the time." Advertisers are paying money, ultimately, to
get results. No readers = no results = no advertisers = no magazine. We have
both met people like John who seem to cynically believe that the "real"
product is the advertising. Instead the real product is indeed the product
(the magazine, the race car, the radio station). That product's success in
the marketplace - how well it meets the needs of the consumer - will determine
how successful the advertising can be. In the end, readers are in control,
despite the fakery you mentioned.

Yours,
Dan Popp
Colors Audio
USA