AUSTRALIA'S largest newspaper publisher, News Ltd, has called for a revamp of the way newspaper readership is measured after a survey showed big falls for some of its leading mastheads.
The call coincides with a new way to measure circulation, which reveals publishers discount up to 9 per cent of their papers to boost circulation.
In the separate Roy Morgan readership survey, Fairfax Media, which publishes The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, picked up big increases in readership.
The Age has increased its Monday to Friday readership by 4.5 per cent to 736,000 readers, its growth outstripping rival the Herald Sun, which dropped 1.9 per cent to 1.5 million.
Readership for The Sunday Age increased a dramatic 11 per cent, or 71,000 readers, to 718,000, while the Sunday Herald Sun declined by 57,000 to 1.5 million. The Age Saturday edition was down 3 per cent.
In Sydney, readership for The Sydney Morning Herald also increased by 3.9 per cent to 887,000, while national business newspaper, Fairfax's The Australian Financial Review, increased marginally to 265,000.
In contrast, rival News Ltd newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, dropped 2 per cent. It's Saturday edition slumped 5.9 per cent to 948,000 while readership of The Sunday Telegraph fell 5.1 per cent to 1.8 million.
News Ltd's national newspaper, The Australian, increased its readers by 7.6 per cent to 426,000.
News said the survey was "riddled with anomalies" and needed reform.
Fairfax Media spokesman Bruce Wolpe said Fairfax supported the survey methodology.
Independent publishing monitoring body, the Audit Bureau of Circulation, yesterday released its audited circulation figures under a new measuring system in a bid to introduce more transparency. Its new figures show The Age's average net paid sales were 200,000 copies, while the Herald Sun's is 540,000.
Data between years can't be compared and publishers must now break out discounted sales, contentious because they accuse each other of inflated sales.
