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NEW YORK (AFX) -
The Wall Street Journal is moving to a smaller width and making other design changes in an effort to save money, draw in new readers, and make the paper available in more places.
The new design will shave three inches from the width of the paper, the equivalent of about one column. The new front page will have five columns instead of six, with the "What's News" summary of the previous day's news flush to the left side of the paper.
Moving to a more standard width of 12 inches will save Dow Jones & Co., the paper's publisher, about $18 million per year and also allow the paper to be printed in more locations, making it easier to produce and deliver to more locations.
In an effort to reach out to younger readers, the paper will also launch a mentoring program and make copies available to young professionals to try out. Gordon Crovitz, the newspaper's publisher, said younger readers and women were especially enthusiastic about the new design in focus groups.
The Journal's new look, which will go into effect Jan. 2, will also feature more color, graphics, shorter stories and fewer "jumps" to the inside of the paper.
Far more of the print version of the newspaper will focus on interpretive and "what does it mean" journalism, Crovitz said in an interview, as readers increasingly get up-to-the-minute information from other sources, including the Journal's own online outlets.
"In a digital world, we need to tell our readers what the news means to them," Crovitz said.
The smaller size will result in about 10 percent less space inside the paper for news, but about half of that reduction will be offset by moving several statistical tables to the paper's Web site, Paul Steiger, the managing editor, said at the news conference.
"We are not agnostic about which channels readers use," Steiger said, referring to the Journal's print and online editions. "We want them to use both."
Mario Garcia, a longtime newspaper design consultant who worked on the Journal's revamp, said the narrower size made it less likely that readers would fold the paper while reading it, something that would make advertisements more visible.
Garcia also said the print version of the paper would be designed to encourage readers to return to the paper more than once during the day.
Business readers "no longer read like grandpa used to, page by page," Garcia said. "We connect to the Internet several times during the day, and eventually return to reading, which is considered a leisure activity, later in the day."
Other major newspapers have also cut their width in recent years, including Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and Gannett Co.'s USA Today. The New York Times is planning to reduce its width in 2008.
Years ago, many major U.S. newspapers were printed in a size similar to the Journal's, but most have since cut back, said Michael Grady, director of production operations at the Newspaper Association of America.
The Journal, in fact, was the last major U.S. paper to continue to print in such a wide format, Grady said, although some smaller community newspapers still use it.
The Journal has struggled more than other major newspapers in recent years due to a prolonged slump in financial and technology advertising, which are its two mainstays.
The Wall Street Journal has made other changes in recent years to reach beyond its core audience of business leaders and advertisers.
In 1998, it launched a highly successful arts and leisure section on Fridays called "Weekend Journal," and in 2002 it made a number of other changes including a new section on personal finance and consumer issues, as well as adding more color and graphics. Last year, it started a Saturday edition with yet more consumer coverage and advertising.
"Initially it may be a bit of a shock to their regular readers, because let's be honest, The Wall Street Journal doesn't change all that much," said Brenda White, a print advertising buyer with Starcom, which is a unit of the French advertising and media services company Publicis Groupe SA.
"To me, this was something that has to be done to keep up with how the consumer is changing out there," White said. Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
Copyright 2006 AFX News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
