Articles take precedence over ads
The tabloid hype not only offers opportunities, but also the danger of degrading editorial content to advertising teasers. However, the industry would be digging its own grave.
Column The tabloid hype harbors opportunities as well as the danger of degrading editorial content to advertising teasers. However, this would mean the industry digging its own grave. Switzerland is rarely talked about as a hotbed of revolutions. And yet we are currently witnessing a small revolution that, at least in the German-speaking world, originated in Helvetia, has since been eating its way northwards and seems to be spreading in the opposite direction in the rest of Europe. In addition, some newspaper publishers seem to be realizing - partly due to cost-cutting pressures - that demanding readers in particular are suffering from constant "information overload". One of the challenges of our media society is therefore to convey the most important information in a short, concentrated, concise and handy way. But not too abbreviated and still with a clear added value in terms of depth and background compared to TV and radio, which unfortunately tend to compete throughout Europe to satisfy the information needs of the illiterate.
Weltwoche has shown that a reduction in the size of premium titles does not automatically indicate small-mindedness. This example is currently being followed in Germany by Springer's Welt-Kompakt. Although still a classic broadsheet, the Financial Times Deutschland is also proof that business elites in particular are prepared to pay almost the same price for a newspaper that is often not even half the size of its direct competitor.
Because fewer newspapers can certainly mean more value for the reader. On this important point, I would like to expressly disagree with my esteemed co-columnist Heribert Seifert (WW 15/04). The crisis, which newspapers will have to contend with for some time to come, certainly offers opportunities to reinvent journalism: There is a market niche for high-quality and highly compact content.
Looking back, one wonders why it took so long for the Independent and Times, Dagens Nyheter and most recently even a tabloid like Blick to make the switch - and why the Berner Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau and Berliner Tagesspiegel have not yet exercised the option of going big in the mini format when they relaunched. Of course, this has a lot to do with the advertising industry, which is concerned about the impact of its advertisements and still wants the more lavish design options of the large format. However, publishers should not forget that their main customers and addressees are neither agencies nor companies but, as always, the readers.
Without their willingness to spend time and - in most cases still - money to consume printed matter, not a single advertising franc will reach the publisher's coffers. Publishers and advertisers alike, however, would rather have a newspaper buyer who is happy leafing through his tabloid in the subway or on the plane, but also on the beach or on the balcony, than someone who puts the broadsheet down in annoyance because he is bothering his neighbor while turning the pages or because the wind is ruffling it. Because only those who really read their newspaper will also receive the advertising.
PS: The New York Times has recently shown format in a completely different way and at the same time revolutionized journalism. Its front-page admission of guilt that it had placed too much trust in the US government and a few shady Arab informants in its Iraq reporting is a milestone on the long road to regaining lost credibility. Such signals should also be registered in the advertising industry and perhaps even rewarded with orders, because only credible media are good advertising media in the long run.
> Stephan Russ-Mohl is a professor of journalism at the University of Lugano.
Weltwoche has shown that a reduction in the size of premium titles does not automatically indicate small-mindedness. This example is currently being followed in Germany by Springer's Welt-Kompakt. Although still a classic broadsheet, the Financial Times Deutschland is also proof that business elites in particular are prepared to pay almost the same price for a newspaper that is often not even half the size of its direct competitor.
Because fewer newspapers can certainly mean more value for the reader. On this important point, I would like to expressly disagree with my esteemed co-columnist Heribert Seifert (WW 15/04). The crisis, which newspapers will have to contend with for some time to come, certainly offers opportunities to reinvent journalism: There is a market niche for high-quality and highly compact content.
Looking back, one wonders why it took so long for the Independent and Times, Dagens Nyheter and most recently even a tabloid like Blick to make the switch - and why the Berner Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau and Berliner Tagesspiegel have not yet exercised the option of going big in the mini format when they relaunched. Of course, this has a lot to do with the advertising industry, which is concerned about the impact of its advertisements and still wants the more lavish design options of the large format. However, publishers should not forget that their main customers and addressees are neither agencies nor companies but, as always, the readers.
Without their willingness to spend time and - in most cases still - money to consume printed matter, not a single advertising franc will reach the publisher's coffers. Publishers and advertisers alike, however, would rather have a newspaper buyer who is happy leafing through his tabloid in the subway or on the plane, but also on the beach or on the balcony, than someone who puts the broadsheet down in annoyance because he is bothering his neighbor while turning the pages or because the wind is ruffling it. Because only those who really read their newspaper will also receive the advertising.
PS: The New York Times has recently shown format in a completely different way and at the same time revolutionized journalism. Its front-page admission of guilt that it had placed too much trust in the US government and a few shady Arab informants in its Iraq reporting is a milestone on the long road to regaining lost credibility. Such signals should also be registered in the advertising industry and perhaps even rewarded with orders, because only credible media are good advertising media in the long run.
> Stephan Russ-Mohl is a professor of journalism at the University of Lugano.
