Cincy Enquirer considers going to unorthodox new page size

10.5" by 15", to be specific. Still being discussed, but they're already run it by focus groups. You've got to think this size will affect story count and ad rates considerably, though it does save on printing costs. Sounds like an increased use of color is involved.

Here's the link, being reported over at Charles Apple's VizEds blog as picked up from Newspapers & Technology: http://www.visualeditors.com/apple/2009/04/cincinnati-enquirer-reportedly-considering-odd-format-size/#comments

And a comparison in sizes:

Pardon me if this is a d_b.

 

Red X on the image

 

The link also has a page size comparison.

 

I've never understood the "smaller" is better strategy. The news is the news. You either give people a strong representation of what is going on in their world or you don't. Newspapers are kidding themselves if they think people don't realize they're getting less product and paying the same price for it.

 

Redesigns don't save newspapers?

NO WAI!

 

We recently went to the 22" web, and most readers really seem to like it. They say it's more handy. We were told that even smaller is already being field tested at other places.

 

Isn't the AJC going smaller this month too?

 

Oh, people know it.

Anytime I deal with the public, I have to answer the following questions:

1. I hear newspapers are dying. Does that mean Podunk Press is struggling?
2. Why is the paper getting smaller?

 

Would it be a tabloid-style design?

 

Anytime a newspaper is trying to sell a bold, vibrant new product in a smaller size, the situation is obvious to the reader: This paper is bleeding cash.

I'm always surprised that the fine folks in the Big Management Offices think they can pass this off to the readers. They can't.

Readers ain't stupid. Many readers are smarter than us. We know that we should write to an eighth-grade level, but we should not forget that the audience skews much smarter than that, and much larger also.

You can't fool anyone by going smaller.
And you should be embarrassed -- professionally and in front of your own family -- to think that you can fool your readers by going smaller yet again.

 

If our readers haven't noticed our narrower paper by now, they will in the next few weeks. When we switched over to 23", we had a lot of 25" left over. Now we're running out of 23" and the head office wants us to use the leftover 25" before we order new 23".

Our pressman says he should be able to stretch our pdf's to 24" without distorting them too much. So, yeah. that'll only be an extra half-inch on each side that I'm guessing the mother ship expects no one to notice. :

 

Its pretty close to either magazine or those National Enquierer format.