Newsday Estimate Off by 20%, Audit Shows

Newsday overstated its daily circulation by 20% and its Sunday circulation by 17%, a report by a newspaper auditing group showed.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations reported weekday circulation of 481,816 copies at the tabloid, based on Long Island in New York, for the year ended September 2003, down from the 579,599 copies originally reported by Newsday.

Auditors also reported Sunday circulation of 574,081, down from Newsday’s original estimate of 671,820.

Newsday parent Tribune Co., which also publishes the Los Angeles Times, said earlier this year that an internal probe of Newsday and the Spanish-language daily Hoy had found poor record keeping and deliberate regulatory violations.