Other studies compared such things as population,income and circulation,and the circulation methods used by Country Gentleman and other farm papers.That same year,it surveyed Post readers and asked them to name the other magazines they read,trying to determine how much duplication there was between Post,Journal and Country Gentleman subscribers and subscribers of competing publications.“City A and City B:A Story of Circulation Based on an Every Home Survey of Two Cities,”1925-1926,CP,Box 84.It continued to expand the market analyses of its readership,providing circulation figures by cities and counties,along with consumption information about each.It also tried to justify the cost of advertising in its publications,showing how a page in the Post or Journal cost more than an ad in other magazines but reached more people,thus offering a lower cost per reader.It also began to compile information to rebut arguments that few women read the Post“Women's Interest in the Saturday Evening Post,”Curtis Bulletin 88(April 22,1927),CP,Box 161,Folder 209.(although its target audience was still men),“Industrial Executives and Technical Men Prefer the Post,”Curtis Bulletin 98(1928),CP,Box 162,Folder 218.and that the magazine had grown so large-it often exceeded two hundred pages in the late 1920s-that readership of advertisements had declined.“Dear Mr.Parlin”;“Will an Advertisement Pull Better in a Large Issue or a Small One?”Curtis Bulletin 91(July 22,1927),CP,Box 161,Folder 212.
In 1928,the company interviewed residents of more than 28,000 homes in Watertown,New York,to determine not only which magazines people of the community bought,but more important,what magazines they actually read.Digests of Principal Research Department Studies,Vol.II,p.11.“Advertisers pay for circulation,”the company wrote in 1925.“But any part of the circulation of a magazine that doesn't produce readers is waste.The most profitable magazine to an advertiser is the magazine whose number of readers is highest in proportion to its circulation.That is why advertising volume tends to parallel number of readers‘rather than quantity of circulation.'”“The Number of Readers,'in Proportion to Circulation,”Curtis Bulletin,60(April 8,1925),CP,Box 160,Folder 190.Worrying about the effect of movies,radio,automobiles and competing magazines,Curtis began looking more substantially at readership of the Post in the mid-1920s.In 1925,it sent staff members to four towns and called upon mostly men in offices and homes,drugstores and groceries“to obtain something rather definite as to the intensity with which the Post was being read.”“The Reading Habits of Saturday Evening Post Readers,”Curtis Bulletin,68(Dec.25,1925),CP,Box 160,Folder 195.The survey was conducted in Boston,Springfield,Mass.,Hartford,Conn.,and Westchester County,New York.Of the sixty-one people interviewed,35%said they spent considerably more time reading the Post than they had five years earlier,about half said they spent the same amount of time,and 14%said less.The average time spent with each issue was about 1 1/2 hours,with at least 15 minutes on ad pages;60%said they read the ad pages first.Two years later,it told its advertising staff that the best way to respond to advertiser doubts about readership was to cite circulation,which had surpassed 3,000,000.“Reader Responsiveness,”Curtis Bulletin,94(Oct.28,1927),CP,Box 161,Folder 214.It also railed against competitors who cited“figures showing newsstand sales of ONE issue,with phrases that paint a brilliant picture of reader-hordes,pantingly trampling on each other's necks in their anxiety to buy...But for week-in-and-week-out,all-the-year-through DEMAND,we can submit facts that enable us safely to challenge any publication to come within Big-Bertha range of the Post.”“The Demand for The Post,”Curtis Bulletin,106(December 1928),CP,Box 162,Folder 226.The first broad study of Post readership seems to have been done in 1930,and was followed up in 1936 and 1939.Digests of Principal Research Department Studies(Philadelphia:Curtis Publishing Company,1946),Vol.II,pp.31,72,124-125.
In the 1930 study,Curtis said that certain basic things were known about all publications:total circulation,advertising volume,the class of advertising published,and their physical appearance.Several lesser-known things were just as important,though,Curtis argued:how long a magazine was kept in a home,how many readers it had per copy,how readership was broken down by sex and occupation,and whether advertising was read.“There is no standard of measurement by which the biggest factor in publishing may be reckoned-the extent to which its columns are valued by the reader,”the company wrote.The Saturday Evening Post(Philadelphia:Curtis Publishing Co.,c.1930),CP,Box 140.Curtis used that survey,as it had earlier surveys,to argue that the Post reached a disproportionate percentage of high-income people,and that each issue sold was read by 3.84 people.For instance,a group made up of executives,professionals,merchants and shopkeepers,and retired persons accounted for 69.62%of readers but only 11.89%of the population.A second group made up of salesmen,skilled trades,office clerical,agriculture and students accounted for 28.89%of readers and 54.55%of the population.A third group of public service employees,unskilled labor,domestic and personal service occupations accounted for 1.49%of readers and 33.56%of the population.The next year,it translated that estimate into consumption,saying that the Post's nearly 3,000,000 copies were read each week by 11,400,000 people who ate 239,400,000 meals,had 220,000 birthdays and more than 120,000 anniversaries,marriages or engagements.It prepared for those readers an imaginary meal of oyster stew,rolls,butter,coffee,ice cream and cake,estimating that it would require 60,000,000 oysters,11,400,000 rolls,236,000 pounds of butter,228,000 pounds of coffee,1,900,000 quarts of ice cream and 570,000 cakes.“Discount this as you will,”the company wrote.“It's a market.”“Looking Ahead,”type,c.1931,CP,Box 140.
