A delay in the release of the 1999 NADbank study has unleashed a war of words in the pages of The Globe and Mail and the National Post – a skirmish that Globe publisher Phillip Crawley doesn’t expect will end when the newspaper readership survey is finally published on Oct. 29.

‘Once those numbers are out,’ he says, ‘you can expect a hell of a debate about just what those numbers say. Will people believe them? We’ll see.’

Crawley says that although he believes the NADbank results will be ‘scrutinized, questioned and debated’ by many people in the media industry, he maintains he isn’t attacking the credibility of NADbank as an organization.

Instead, Crawley says he’s simply defending the Globe against several published reports he claims are laden with ‘misinformation and propaganda’ that reflect negatively on his newspaper. A report in the (Sept. 27 issue of Maclean’s magazine, for instance, states that the Globe’s Monday-to-Friday readership figures in Toronto are down 30% over last year.

NADbank will be giving extra attention to the volatile Toronto market with a newly announced readership-only survey that will be conducted from late September to January. Results will be published soon after completion.

While Crawley believes the Oct. 29 NADbank release will show the Globe remaining in the number-one spot nationally, he cautions that the market the study measured is a very confused and distorted one.

‘NADbank chose to include the Post this year in its first year, but obviously in the first year of a new product, all sorts of things can happen that would not be regarded as normal.’

Don Babick, publisher of the National Post, says his paper is willing to live by the results of a third-party study that is endorsed by the industry, even if his chief competitor thinks the process may be flawed.

Meanwhile, members of the media buying community are frustrated by the delays and the rumours surrounding the NADbank numbers. Many won’t comment on the rancor between the competing newspapers, preferring to wait until the NADbank survey comes out before making any statement about it.

Whatever the results, Sunni Boot, president of Optimedia Canada, believes the NADbank survey is worth the wait because it will give media buyers the credible information they need to allocate ad dollars.

Boot says NADbank is the only reliable service of its type and, whatever its flaws, everyone has agreed that it is the best way to get a good picture of newspaper readership on a national basis.