Compact success 15
no 1 2010 | NEWSBOUND | www.tolerans.com
The success of the Scandinavian Compact The Scandinavian Newspapers’ Formula for transitioning from broadsheet to stitched tabloid.
To attract new readers
“According to Swedish newspapers their number one reason for changing format was to attract new readers – the young and the women,” says Josefine Sternvik, PhD in media and journalism at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her 2005 report called ‘In shrunken suit’ analyzed the Swedish morning papers’ transition from broadsheet to tabloid format. She concluded that readers wanted a newspaper that was more portable, with shorter
Illustration: Johan Isaksson
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abloids have traditionally screamed sensational journalism and Page 3 girls, but since the 1990s Scandinavian newspapers have been proving that format does not have to dictate content. All major Norwegian newspapers are tabloid size or smaller – the last three titles switched on the same day in 2007. The Berliner format – a narrow broadsheet size that is popular in the United States – has disappeared entirely. In Sweden, almost all daily newspapers are now stitched tabloids, including respected newspapers such as Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Industri. Since 2000, the trend toward ‘tabloidization’ has gathered momentum globally, but Scandinavian newspapers started experimenting with the format decades ago, which is considered standard today. The tabloids are regarded a ‘contemporary’ format and symbolic of the new, modern newspaper. A similar trend has been seen in the UK with reputed titles like The Times and The Independent. In Germany, the prestigious financial Handelsblatt, has had great success transitioning to a stitched, compact, or what the paper prefers to call a ‘business format’.
and divided into ten different daily and weekly sub-sections of distinct news categories. Daily newspapers that turn to stitched sections create more targeted advertising space and, in turn, increase advertising with new, interesting products to sell. “The experience in Sweden has proven that you don’t have to lose advertising revenue when you switch to a smaller format,” says Josefine Sternvik. “The newspapers use the principle “a page is a page, regardless of size”, and most advertisers accept it. So, many of the Scandinavian newspapers actually manage to raise the price of advertisements”, she adds. Stitching also enables high-impact double spread ads throughout the paper, not only on the center spread, meaning additional advertising revenues to the newspaper. Stitching even makes it possible to offer advertisers a section of their own. Henrik Stangel, Dagens Nyheter’s sales director is satisfied that “separately stitched sections give our sales people more sales opportunities for commercial sections, special sections, and wrap advertisements”. The benefits are crystal clear to the newspaper - they now produce 150 commercial inserts inline every year. The compact printed newspaper a part the multimedia news platform According to Josefine Sternvik the Scandinavian compact, stitched and sectioned format enables a stronger correlation between print and on-line news, and it was easier to adapt this format to the format of the Internet. That also goes for advertising. The Scandinavian compact – the road to success?
news, a paper that was quicker and easier to read. Additionally, women were an important target group to advertisers, because of their purchasing power in the market place. To save money on production costs
Another important reason for change was that publishers could save money in terms of both paper, editing and printing costs. According to Sternvik, the increase in the number of color pages enabled new possibilities for layout and design as well as new advertising opportunities,
tabloid paper is unable to have distinct sections in the same way that broadsheets can. In Scandinavia this was solved by stitching the newspaper in-line. Ribbon-bound stitching allows sections and inserts to be printed smartly yet still be part of the daily print run. At present, Swedish daily morning papers have several sections every day, all stitched inline. This means they don’t have to spend additional money in pre-print costs, as many publishers do, which can amount to millions of dollars. The sections fall out of the paper and into the hands of readers neatly.
Stitching enables sections
Stitched sections attracts advertisers
One concern for many publishers of broadsheet newspaper is that a
For a number of years, Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter, has been stitched
Sternvik concludes that an important success factor when transitioning from broadsheet to compact is to prepare for implementation carefully, internally as well as externally. Include your editorial and production staff, the advertisers, and the readers you want to get and keep. And finally, don’t just shrink the full-size format to a tabloid format. When Swedish newspapers went compact and stitched, the customer satisfaction increased by 100 percent. Eight out of 10 readers thought the format had improved, and the time spent reading the paper increased with by 20 percent. What is more - Scandinavia maintains one of the highest readerships in the world. n