Baltimore Sun tabloid

Some tabs break the photo in two and run part on one page and part on the other. I don't think it really works very well except on a true doubletruck, but they've been doing it awhile.

Re: your earlier comment that the tab sports section is working OK in your market. Well, I don't see your section very often, but my recollection is that your section doesn't have many ads, and large, broadsheet-centric ads are the problem that most paper encounter when they try this.

I wish the Sun well with this, but my instinct is that after the initial newness wears off, this isn't going to do anything for them. It strikes me as a case of spending a little money and a lot of effort to do something just so people can't accuse you of standing still. Historically, newspapers that have tried this have noticed no longterm effect on circulation and usually they've gone back to broadsheet after a few years because it's more trouble than it's worth.

Early in my career I worked on a paper that was tab on Saturdays and broadsheet the rest of the time and then in my 30s I was on a couple real tabloids, so I have no snobbishness about them, I just think it's a horrible business plan. Papers that go downmarket are really struggling worse than anyone else, and except in a few rare places, upscale readers still have a problem with the format and tone. Even educated people don't really know the true definition of "tabloid," they think it's another word for sleazy. I was working on one and I was having lunch with a college friend who is no dummy, has a couple of advanced degrees and has spent his life in museums and academia. I made some reference to working on a tabloid and he said:

"So you admit it!"

"Admit what?"

"That it's a tabloid!"

"Well, yeah. That's what it's called."

"But isn't that kind of an insult?"

"No no no no no. It refers to the size of the page."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does. The Christian Science Monitor is a tabloid except they use small wussy headlines, the Chronicle of Higher Education is a tabloid ..."

"The Chronicle of Higher Education is not a tabloid!"

"Is too, Professor! Get a fucking dictionary!"

"Bullshit! Are you trying to say I don't know what the word 'tabloid' means?"

"Yes! That's exactly what I'm saying!"

Definite stigma. The folks in Baltimore'll figure that out.

 

See all of today's section: http://www.sportsdesigner.com/1/2007/12/baltimore-sun-t.html.

 

They need some refers on that cover. Maryland women lose their first and lots of good baseball stuff.

 

Again, the black-and-white pages stick out like a sore thumb next to the color.

 

I never understood the use of that phrase. It's often used in direct opposition to its intended purpose. I'm guessing sore thumbs stick out. In this reference, aren't the color pages the ones that stick out? Being that they are in the minority or visually capturing? The black and white pages are muted, more like the the other thumb, the one that isn't sore. I'm so confused.

 

You can spread a photo over two facing pages and go into the gutter even if it's not a truck. Newsday does this just about every day. The Post and the Daily News do it occasionally.

 

It's actually pretty standard practice.
Over two pages it's called a spread. There's only one true double truck in the section.
The only tricky thing with a photograph over a spread is the cutline information on the pagebreak. But, once you have type parameters, you have your limitations.

 

One nice element of tabs (or at least Balmer's) is segregating the ads onto their own pages for the most part -- only three of the 19 pages posted had ad presence on them.

 

Well, that's the knock against tabs and why advertisers historically are not fans.
Their advertising isn't intimately associated with the editorial content. If there is an ad presence with the editorial, it greatly limits any impact or presentation.
Kind of like a helicopter fights physics for its purpose, so do tabs. They're difficult to marry a healthy ad ratio and strong editorial presentation.
Of course, that's the downside. There are many benefits as well. Readability (physically) and browsing chief among them.