The announcement by Fairfax CEO yesterday that they are resizing The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald is great news. The change will suggest the paper is moving with the times – that it’s on the move. While it doesn’t address the migration of advertising from print, it could slow the migration by making the product more convenient.
The folks at The Guardian in the UK moved from Broadsheet to the more compact berliner format with great success. In researching recent newspaper format changes I came across this blog post from Jeff Jarvis. It’s worth reading, as always from Jeff – his passion for newspapers and journalism is an inspiration. His work with publishers like the folks at The Guardian affords us an insight into navigating change like that now being discussed by our own Fairfax.
While there will be challenges for newsagents in the new size – distribution and retail – it’s change for the good. One of the reasons newsagencies are less important to consumers today (ACP and Hallmark data) is static core product. When Fairfx does launch the new size we can make a big noise and hopefully attract some new customers.
I applaud Faifax for taking this step to reduce the size of ‘The Age’& ‘Sydney Morning Herald’. My main concern as is with most newsagents is how will Fairfax manage the new size of the paper to make distribution manageable. We already have a battle with the ‘A2’ at certain times of the year in its current size, so making the paper smaller by 5cm will only increase the overall thickness. I am sure Fairfax will not sacrifice space as a result of the smaller size.
Vaughan Lawrence
Beechworth Newsagency