Abroad, The Wall Street Journal Will Be a Tabloid

NYT reports The Wall Street Journal announced plans yesterday to convert its European and Asian editions to tabloid formats, starting Oct. 17. The conversions are expected to save $17 million annually, beginning next year. The current 24-page broadsheets will be converted to 36 to 40 tabloid pages, said a Journal spokesman, Robert H. Christie. The change will save on newsprint but will also reduce the space available for news content by as much as one-third.

Industry analysts said conversions from broadsheets to tabloid formats, which have been popular in Europe, are intended to attract younger readers, many of whom see headlines first on cellphones, BlackBerrys and the Internet.... Mr. Garcia said he was currently offering advice to The Observer in London and Le Soir in Brussels on tabloid conversions. Most of the national British papers, with the notable exception of The Daily Telegraph, have converted to tabloids.

Forbs reports Can The Tabloid Format Save Newspapers? ... The trend is set to continue, particularly as growing broadband penetration encourages the wider use of online media. In addition, free commuter tabloids, available in many big European and U.S. cities, have lured away some paying customers. As a result, the revenue and profits of traditional newspapers are under intense pressure.... Many, particularly in Europe, see their salvation in changing formats. They believe that switching to a more compact one, such as the tabloid format, may lift circulation by attracting disaffected newspaper readers.... As the pages shrink, so do the ads (a full-page ad is only half its previous size), and advertisers may be unwilling to pay the same price for what they see as less consumer exposure and recognition. They may also be concerned about placement. And newspapers sometimes use a format change to introduce a new advertising rate card, meaning potentially higher rates and the end of previously negotiated discounts. Another reason for the decline in ad revenue involves the public perception of tabloid newspapers. Broadsheets are associated with serious news coverage, tabloids with more frivolous content.

The newspapers sold in checkout lines (like National Enquirer) and many of the papers in Britain that highlight titulating items are tabloids, but what the NYT article totally ignored, and what the Forbes article only addressed toward the end of the article, is that "tabloid format" has nothing to do with the content or focus of the paper, it just refers to the size of the paper, which for tabloid is roughly 23" by 14", rather than broadsheet format, which is roughly 29" by 23".

I wonder if they omitted that to make it look bad for the Wall Street Journal.

The tabloid format gives a paper which is smaller and easier to carry. Since the page size is smaller the ads are smaller, and the paper might not be able to charge as much for a full page tabloid ad as it did for a full page broadsheet ad, but it could probably charge more per square inch of newsprint.

When the Tulsa Computer Society printed its I/O Port Newsletter on newsprint, and distributed over 10,000 around the Tulsa area, it used the Tabloid format.