Visual Editors
Visual Editors, NFP was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 2004.
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Bill Ostendorf
Tiki Lounger
Joined: 22 Jan 2005
Posts: 12
Location: Providence, RI
Posted:
Sat Apr 02, 2005 3:35 pm
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Hi guys, It's been fun to read your exchange on tabs.
Despite the fact that as a busy design consultant I have much to gain if the U.S. publishers started a tab conversion craze, I have to say I think it would be nuts.
I've got absolutely nothing against tabs. At Creative Circle, we've recently converted several broadsheet weeklies to tabs in the past year, we're launching a new suburban tab in a few few weeks and I'm just back from Bermuda where we are launching a redesign of The Bermuda Sun. Tabs are good.
But this froth over tabs is mostly fanned by Mario and, to a some extent Juan Ginar at Innovation. (Shame on E&P and others for doing shallow, one-source stories on this major topic.) And I'm mostly with Alan on this one. Works great in Europe but isn't such a great idea here. Sorry Robb but the Sun-Times isn't exactly the dominant newspaper in my hometown Chicago. Nor are either of the tabs your billionaire client is planning to launch all over the country. Nor are any tabs anywhere else in the U.S. or Canada. Hmmmm. Tab is the answer but no tab on the continent is leading a competitive battle? Seems odd doesn't it?
The bottom line is this: People aren't not reading newspaper because of our format! And converting to tabs certainly won't save the industry. Every dollar spend on converting our sizes should be refocused on content instead.
Newspapers are slipping away because we're dull and publishers aren't reinvesting in content, technology and new products.
Cheap and dull is killing newspapers; not page size.
There isn't a broadsheet alive in the U.S. that would gain circulation simply by changing paper size. Yet newspaper chains are going nuts over the idea. Pathetic.
Spend some cash on better content -- better editing, design and graphics. Spend some cash to develop a whole new media -- the web and other news delivery systems. And make INTERESTING a priority for your coverage. That's how to turn this bus around. What are we doing instead? Cutting newsroom staffs!
I was working on some Readership Institute material the other day and talking with Monica Moses about it and we agreed on the one thing that drives us most crazy about this business: Smarter content and editing and visuals could save newspapers but we just can't get the industry to spend the money.
The format stuff is just noise. A distraction we cannot afford.
Bill
_________________
Bill Ostendorf, CCMC, 401-277-4827 |
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MattErickson23
MattE.
Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 772
Location: The Times of Northwest Indiana
Posted:
Sun Apr 03, 2005 9:00 am
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| alanjacobson wrote:: | | AND, they have to make money. I haven't seen a single response to the issues I've raised about revenue. As much as the newsroom thinks they call the shots, this is not just an editorial or journalism issue. |
First of all, I've really enjoyed catching up on this particular conversation because at the very least, it's obvious both sides of this equation in this thread are passionate about their beliefs.
Coming off a fresh redesign/reinvention of The Times in Munster (where we DID attempt to make content overhauls in the hopes of gaining some new readers), I learned first-hand all too quickly that the newsroom most definitely does not call the shots. It's advertising and marketing, and it should be. After all, business is business and we're in business to make money, right? The real money for the paper is made with the ad revenue and through marketing if they're out there promoting the paper well (by the way, quick plug for the Chicago Trib's new and brilliant and beautiful marketing campaign on TV and in print).
Theresa Badovich and I were rather uniquely involved in our Fall 2004 redesign/reinvention. Rather than draw that thick line in the sand separating the newsroom from advertising/marketing/circulation departments, we were working side by side with them. Were those departments determining the editorial direction of the newspaper? Nope, as they shouldn't. But that doesn't mean the newsroom shouldn't be working in congress with those departments when it comes to the simple act of selling more newspapers, because eventually selling more newspapers means higher ad rates, which means more profitable papers.
| alanjacobson wrote:: | | If tabs were so highly prized, why do they come in second to broadsheet? |
I'm not sure it's THAT simple. In the cities mentioned, the tabs are going up against very storied and historically elite publications, are they not? And weren't all of them made tabs (whether new or conversions) well after their chief competitors were well established as the market leader? I can't speak to the newspaper histories of those cities, so someone enlighten me if I'm misspeaking. I would contend, though, that if the Sun-Times redesigned to a broadsheet, I still think the Tribune would retain its circulation edge for a long time to come, which would bring us right back to the argument that it's not just about the newsroom. It's about a lot of other factors that most newsrooms can't control. (And that's not a knock on the Sun-Times because most days of the week, I enjoy looking at that paper as much or more than the Tribune).
Now, not wanting to be a fourth hub in this discussion, I'll simply sit back and let the rest of you continue to educate me, because it's been great so far. Keep up the good work.
_________________
SND Region 4 (Lakes) Director: Visit the online blog!
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WWLDD?: What Would Larry David Do?
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MattE: The Times NFL Insider columns |
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Robb Montgomery
Founder
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Posts: 1504
Location: Chicago
Posted:
Thu Apr 28, 2005 3:31 pm
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| scavendish wrote:: | The Reds aren't free. If you're walking down the street and see something you like in the racks, you've gotta put in a quarter to see it.
Now, whether the jury is still out on the Reds . . . well, it's out on only one.  |
Michael Miner in the Chicago Reader talks about how FREE Red Eye really is:
| Chicago Reader wrote:: |
The sidewalk outside the Belmont el station is lined with red boxes stuffed with gratis copies of RedEye. "We used to sell 500 papers a day," said the newsstand operator, who didn't want to give his name. "Now we're down to 100. Would you pay if you could get it free?
"Everyone has the same problem," he went on, rattling off the names of other stations plagued by the RedEye sampling. "They do it because they can."
Far be it from anyone at the Reader to object on principle to newspapers being given away for free. But I hoped John O'Loughlin, general manager of RedEye, would comment on the collateral damage done by his paper's campaign. My call was routed to Tribune spokesman Patty Wetli, and she didn't. "There are some locations where we've been sampling papers in the afternoons and have switched to mornings," Wetli said. "It's part of a sort of holistic look at our distribution and where it makes the most sense to have samplers in the best way to get the most copies in the hands of the most readers." |
There's much more in The Reader: http://www.chireader.com/hottype/2005/050429_1.html |
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