This is an era of advocating large size, big supermarkets and large-size TV screens ... However, many newspaper companies are now "striving for large size"-reducing the size of core newspapers to facilitate readers' reading and save costs to the maximum extent.
The printing machine with a web width of 50 inches (about 127 cm) was once a novelty, but now it has almost become the industry standard, and some newspapers have changed the layout to be thinner. Some newspapers will face the newspaper (single page size is 12 inches× 21inch, about 30.5cm×53cm；; ; The page size of China Youth Daily is about 39.5cm×54.5cm) and it has been changed to Berlin edition (Berlin edition: 12 inch×18.5 inch, about 27.5cm×47cm), with four tabloids and even a more compact layout.
"Nowadays, American newspapers are more and more interested in small pages," said John Richard, director of newspaper product management of Gauss International Group, who also mentioned the trend of shortening pages in European newspapers in the past 10 years.
However, reducing the layout faces many challenges, such as the need for new printing presses and newspaper distributors, the need for a thorough revision of the newspaper from content to layout, and the need to re-plan the column size and advertising price. From all over the world, those newspapers that have made the above changes have mixed results, but this has not slowed down the pace of reducing the layout. According to the statistics of the Paris-based World Press Federation, in recent years, about 70 newspapers outside the United States have been reduced from the original folio edition to the compact edition, and about 10 newspapers are being revised.
News Express, a subsidiary of Gannett Group, may become the first newspaper in North America to change its size to "Berlin Edition". "This will give us an opportunity to rethink and examine the whole newspaper industry," said Austin Ryan, vice president of products in the newspaper department of Gannett Group.
"Berlin Edition" won the first battle.
In September, 2005, the Guardian in London changed from folio edition to Berlin edition, which is considered as an important step to narrow the trend of newspaper layout worldwide. After the revision, the Guardian gained rapid circulation growth and industry praise with its brand-new layout. In February 2006, the newspaper design association headquartered in North Kingston awarded the Guardian the "Best Newspaper Layout Award in the World".
Front page of the Guardian on April 29, 2006
After The Guardian was changed to Berlin Edition, the newspaper experienced a period of rapid circulation growth. Until June 2006, the average daily circulation was 394913, an increase of 4.2% over 2005. According to a report by McKinsey & Company in 2005, in recent years, the circulation of mainstream European newspapers increased by 6-8% in the second year after changing to compact format.
However, the main distribution scope of News Express is North America, and the readers' characteristics and business model in North America are quite different from those in Europe.
If News Express wants to make a similar revision, the first thing to consider is how to adjust its printing machine and printing and distribution equipment. This newspaper bought a Geoman4×2 offset press from Roland Co., Ltd., which has an office in Westmont, Illinois, USA. The newspaper used this printing machine to replace their Gauss Mark I letterpress printing machine, which was produced in 1960. The new printing production line supports 18.5 inch (about 47 cm) cutting, and the drum width is 48 inches, which is part of the newspaper's $23 million printing equipment renovation plan. Geoman printing press is specially designed and produced for Berlin edition, which is slightly smaller than wide edition.
Officials in gannett are convinced that news express will be very popular in lafayette, where there is a new community composed of Purdue University students. Judging from the market survey of local residents, the situation is very optimistic. Different from ordinary compact newspapers, the layout of Berlin edition, like folio newspapers, is loose-leaf and unbound, and several people can read newspapers at the same time.
"Readers like the Berlin edition," said Vince Lapinsky, chief operating officer of Roland. "They also like size."
The cost of the compact version
Many newspapers are "slimming" their own newspapers to cope with the rising printing costs.
The Wall Street Journal plans to replace 60-inch reels with 48-inch reels by 2007. Peter R. Ann, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dow Jones Company, said at the shareholders' meeting in June 2005 that reducing the drum size was to save the company $6.5438+0.8 million in printing expenses every year. However, the cost of modification is huge. It costs $43 million to transform the 19 production line of the newspaper 17 printing point, and $0/30,000 is needed for staff training and marketing expenses.
Jim Gao, vice president and general manager of printing line service company, believes that this change is a trend. His company has been reducing the size of newspapers since the 1990s. Three newspapers have been successfully helped to change their printing presses to 48 inches, and another 18 newspapers have signed renovation contracts with them.
The company recently changed the roller from 50 inches to 48 inches for Tucson newspaper company. The company publishes Arizona Daily Star and Tucson People (combined average circulation is 65,438+032,557).
Larry Arus, vice president of operations of Tucson Newspaper Company, said: "It takes six months before and after the edition reduction, mainly to reduce the paper cost. He refused to disclose the cost of reducing the edition, but he predicted that the cost savings in printing after reducing the edition would enable the newspaper to recover the cost of reducing the edition within two years.
The main task of this project is to change the mechanical structure of fixing the printing plate on the cylinder of the printing machine through mechanical adjustment. Another important technical problem is the need to rearrange the ink rollers and templates, which is a great challenge for a double-sheet printer with two adjacent templates, but for a sheet-fed printer, there is no need to change the templates.
Gannett, the parent company of Tucson Newspaper Company, changed more than 30 newspapers using a single printing press into 48-inch rollers; The company plans to transform all its double presses before the first quarter of 2007, said Austin Ryan, vice president of products gannett.
However, the simplified layout poses a challenge to plug-ins. Because of the problem of layout specifications, inserts printed according to the size before revision (inserts are often printed by advertisers) will have some paper exposed in the reduced Berlin version. In big European cities, people are often used to buying retail newspapers. Insert advertisements are not as popular as those in the United States, but in the United States, this problem has to be taken into account.
After considering many plans, News Express decided to put the insert advertisement in the Sunday edition for the time being, and put the insert advertisement in a bag with the normal page. Travis Komida, the newspaper's director of operations, said that plastic bags require transparency, and each bag costs about 3 cents. In fact, this method can also be used in other six newspapers, of course, depending on the amount and size of the insert advertisements.
The newspaper will use SLS3000 inserter and dynamic packaging system of GMA company in Pennsylvania. The production speed of the bagging machine ordered by News Express from GMA Company is 12800-24000 newspapers per hour, depending on the size of newspapers and inserts.
The survival of all small publications is to find ways to sell them along the street. News Express plans to replace its more than 300 old newspaper racks that can only display the first half of the original folio newspaper with a newspaper rack that can display the entire front page of the newspaper.
Change the advertising pricing strategy
Some skeptics question whether reducing the layout pattern will weaken the profitability of North American newspapers today. After all, the operation mode and methods of North American newspapers are quite different from their European counterparts.
"American newspapers usually get 80-85% revenue from advertising, but most European city newspapers only get 55-70% of the total revenue." Earl Wilkinson, managing director of the International Newspaper Marketing Association, said.
"Advertising billing in traditional newspapers is based on the width and height of the columns occupied by advertisements. Therefore, it is difficult for them to smoothly change the billing method into a compact newspaper based on the percentage of advertisements in the page area after the revision. " Ryan Kuba, president of Kuba Consulting in Toronto, said. His company's main business is to help newspapers develop updated pricing models. "Newspaper advertisements sell influence, not scale." Kuba suggested.
It's less than a year since the Asian and European editions of The Wall Street Journal changed from folio to Compact Edition. According to the survey of subscribers, the newspaper has not lost its advertising influence, and readers' feedback on the newspaper's advertisements is even better than before the revision.
The Belgian newspaper Antwerp made a further investigation. At the same time, it published two types of newspapers in six weeks in 2004: folio newspapers and quarto newspapers. The market researcher interviewed 65,438+0,800 people who had seen these two forms of advertisements.
"In most cases, advertisements in four tabloid formats have at least the same influence as open newspapers", and in some cases may even surpass the latter. Eric Christian, financial director of Focus Media, the parent company of Antwerp, said in the report of the World Press Federation in June 2005. This research topic belongs to the project of "Shaping the Future Newspaper" led by the Federation. The report investigates many newspapers around the world with reduced formats and summarizes how they cope with the corresponding changes.
In 2004, the Swedish Gothenburg Post changed from folio format to folio format, and the newspaper reduced the advertising price of some pages. The price of a full-page advertisement is equivalent to 70% of the price of a folio newspaper.
"The impact of a full page plus four pages is similar to that before the revision, but I just think it should be cheaper than before." Glenn Adelin, the newspaper's senior financial manager, said.
An Australian newspaper has a similar practice. After they changed from a folio newspaper to a four-page newspaper, the price of full-page advertisements dropped to half of the original.
The introduction of printing presses that can provide more colorful versions will help solve the price problem of advertisements after format conversion. For example, Bismarck Tribune, with an average circulation of 27,665,438+03 copies, belongs to the Lee Group in Iowa. In 2005, the printing cylinder was changed from 50 inches to 46 inches.
As one of the $7 million revision plans, the newspaper used a new Roland 75 combined printing machine to replace its Gauss Metropolitan Printing Machine which has been used for more than 30 years. The new equipment can save printing cost and print more color plates. The newspaper's local advertisers have now accepted the new advertising pricing model, and they no longer buy advertisements according to the page size.
Christine Wilson, the newspaper's advertising director, said that thanks to the new printing press, the newspaper's advertising revenue increased by 9% compared with the same period of the previous fiscal year.
News Express uses the Geoman printing machine of Roland Company.
News Express will provide some standard advertising sample sizes. These sizes and corresponding price settings emphasize the concept of charging according to the percentage of advertisements in the layout rather than the size. This change will be promoted a few months before the layout changes. "We still need to do a lot of promotion work to make the market accept this change in pricing strategy smoothly." Jeff Bergen, marketing director of Gannett newspaper department, said.
From home page to obituary page: content is still the core
During the preparation for the layout reform of News Express, the editorial department has been planning everywhere.
"From the front page to the obituary page, you have to reconsider all the details," sussman said. "We want to provide the news and information that readers expect us to provide, but the capacity of a single page has decreased after the revision. So every layout has to be re-planned. "
It is estimated that the printing cost will be reduced by 15% after the revision, but this goal has not been achieved in the first few months after the revision. Newspaper editors need time to adapt to the layout and space rules of compact newspapers.
But in the long run, if the number of pages is increased while the layout is reduced, but there is no follow-up of the same proportion of advertisements, then the newspaper will face the fate that it is difficult to recover the investment in revision.
Critics believe that regardless of the format, content is still the key to the success of any newspaper. The short-term gains of newspaper revision in the market will bring wrong understanding to readers and advertisers. "What we really need to do is to do the content well and then worry about the layout." Bill Ostendorf, president of Innovative Media Consulting, said. Newspapers should spend time and money on making products that are more attractive and closer to readers.
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Patriot News (with an average circulation of 98,082) once founded a four-page tabloid Patriot, which is a speed-reading version of Patriot News. It hopes to be another choice for readers who are busy at work or occasionally read newspapers. The price is the same as Patriot News, and they can also subscribe.
Although some readers prefer the size of the new compact version, the daily circulation of Patriot in quarto is still only 1, 100. Six months later, this small newspaper closed down.
"We didn't find many readers saying,' OK, let's change the layout to this.' John cocke, editor-in-chief and publisher of Patriot News, said. But he still believes that compact newspapers have potential, which of course depends on the market environment and profit model. In the autumn of 2006, the newspaper will change the current 50-inch reel width to 48 inches to save printing costs. "Sooner or later, we will change the newspaper into four tabloids, although it can only be reduced by 1 inch at a time. "