In the U.S. online media landscape, the Wall Street Journal Online is a unique animal. It is the only major national newspaper to charge for access to almost all its online content (basic yearly rate: $79). In fact, publisher Dow Jones & Co. won't even let print subscribers get online access without paying a separate fee of $39.

WSJ.com has 686,000 paying subscribers, but until now, the Wall Street Journal hasn't counted any of those paying readers toward the paper's paid circulation totals.

That all changed this month, when the Journal released new average daily paid circulation figures that include some of its paying online subscribers.

The controversial move gave a much-needed boost to the Journal's sagging sales figures: The Journal's print circulation showed a net gain of just 47 paying readers between September 2002 and September 2003.

When you add the online subscribers to the Journal's circulation numbers, the paper's paid circulation totals jump an impressive 16 percent: From 1,800,607 in September 2002 to 2,091,062 in September 2003.

Counting the online subscribers is perfectly legal: The Audit Bureau of Circulations -- which makes the rules about what counts and what doesn't count as paid circulation -- decided in July that newspapers can count online subscriptions on a "case-by-case basis." The bureau previously only allowed papers to count online subscriptions for "replica editions," or PDF versions of newspapers.

Circulation rules don't allow the Journal to count all WSJ.com subscribers -- just the ones who don't also subscribe to the paper and who pay at least 25 percent of the price of the print version of paper.

The new total circulation number sure looks good. In a report on the circulation numbers, Editor & Publisher's Mark Fitzgerald highlighted the Journal's "significant gains," saying they delivered an "eye-catching" increase in circulation.

Both E&P and Newsday ran Top 10 charts that put the Journal's new number and growth alongside other publications such as USA Today and the Los Angeles Times that don't include online subscriptions.

Vin Crosbie, a consultant with Digital Deliverance, notes that the ABC has changed its rules in the past five years to include bulk subscriptions (like Gannett dropping off copies of USA Today at hotels) and education programs.

"They're trying to figure out what to do with the Web sites because the newspapers would love to be able to count registered users of the Web site as print circulation, or do online circulation on a separate line and do total circulation, which is what the Wall Street Journal is trying to do here," Crosbie told me.

At #1 in circulation, USA Today was fairly bristling at the move by the #2 Journal, with a spokesman telling the Journal's own Matthew Rose that "an inclusive number for print and online for USA Today would be 6.8 million. How far do you want to take it?"

ABC spokeswoman Marybeth Meils told me that the bureau would continue to focus on paid circulation only. USA Today's Web site -- like most newspaper Web sites -- is free.

The ABC is a third-party non-profit organization, but its 36-member Board of Directors includes execs from publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies -- and they largely set the agenda.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.com

The Journal's online brass said the combined circulation number was a way to showcase the online audience for advertisers who were only thinking about print. "The combined number benefits the advertisers by making them aware of the incredible audience opportunity they can get by buying print and online together," said Todd Larsen, president of consumer electronic publishing at Dow Jones. "That's the big opportunity. It drives significant awareness of an opportunity that's very strong, at a pricing that's very attractive."

Larsen told me the Journal could have used a combined number earlier, but wanted to have a program in place to cross-sell both mediums. They now offer a 30 percent discount for print advertisers who will start advertising online as well. Larsen says the Journal was making it as clear as possible that the new, larger number included online subscriptions.

"It's very well documented by the [Journal] statement itself and certainly by the way we're explaining it to the media community as well as to advertisers," he said. "It's not in our interest at all to have advertisers confused. We're making every effort to be as clear and explanatory as we can."

Online marketing specialists welcomed the move, saying it gives new cachet to online publishing and advertising. Consultant Joseph Jaffe, who writes for the iMedia Connection site, was intrigued by the combined circulation number.

"Consumers don't differentiate, discriminate or distinguish between various forms of media. So why do we?" he told me via e-mail. "The new empowered consumer wants information on demand -- on their terms -- whether in the form of print or digital, mobile or broadcast. The real litmus test will be how [publishers] treat the print and online properties moving forward. I'd like to see if one print impression will equal one online impression. Bottom line: This could be a stunt or it could be a substantial evolutionary move."

Neil Budde, former publisher of Wall Street Journal Online and now a consultant, said it is smart for organizations to think of online and offline in a unified way -- as long as the numbers are transparent for advertisers. Plus, he said that advertisers still need to think differently about online and offline audiences, with their differing consumption of the mediums.

"Most copies of the print newspaper are read every day -- often by more than one reader," Budde told me via e-mail. "Buying an ad on a single day will reach much of this audience. But not every online news consumer turns to an online news site every day. Some do come daily. Others come only once a week. This range of behavior produces the low average monthly visits so widely reported [by Nielsen//NetRatings] for news sites. Advertisers need to take this into consideration when using online media. They need to plan the length of a campaign and the consumers over an extended period."

However, the Journal's Larsen says that Nielsen//NetRatings numbers are unfair, and include people who pop by WSJ.com and get shut out as a one-second visit. Instead, he notes that the Journal's internal numbers show that paid subscribers took in 158 page views per person on average for the month of October.

Finding synergy

One group that's pleased as punch about the new combined Journal circulation number is the online editorial staff. Bill Grueskin, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal Online, told me he was "very happy" that the online presence was now being seen as an integral part of the Journal.

"One of my mantras has been that people want their news when they want it," he said. "As much as we can do to work closely with the Journal and Dow Jones news wires, the better. If it helps people on the outside to see us as one organic entity, then that's great."

WSJ.com is starting to see the fruits of both editorial and promotional synergy with its print counterpart. When the print Journal was redesigned in April 2002, a special box was added to the front page highlighting three things on WSJ.com. Plus, entire features from WSJ.com have been re-run in print -- taking traditional repurposing the other direction. And top print journalists like Joseph White (cars) and Scott McCartney (airlines) are contributing online-only columns on their beats.

"It's time to stop thinking about this as 'who's benefiting whom?' because it's really a joint benefit," Grueskin said. "I think there was more skepticism and concern [in the past]. Our reporters are smart people and they're reading Web sites all the time, and they're seeing the landscape change in front of them. It's changing so fast and so fundamentally you have to be living in a cave to not see it."

Some Key Statistics for the Wall Street Journal

Average page views read per WSJ.com subscriber per month in October: 158

15 percent of print subscribers also subscribe online

Print circulation for Wall Street Journal in September:

2003: 1,800,650
(print combined with some online subscriptions: 2,091,062)

2002: 1,800,607

2001: 1,780,605

2000: 1,762,749

1999: 1,752,693

In March 2003, users of the Online Journal spent an average of 62 minutes, two seconds, on the site, compared with 41 minutes, five seconds, for the next highest ranking general news site, NYTimes.com

Source: Wall Street Journal and Audit Bureau of Circulation