What was the Sunday Times thinking?
That grand old dame of Sunday newspapers which desperately wants to be a tabloid - the Sunday Times - has had (another) nip and tuck this week.
We now have the “luxury” of a stand-alone sports section. What they forgot to mention was that it’d be a tabloid and as tight as a stingy uncle.
Previously, sport was “appended” to the back of the ‘Insight & Opinion’ section, a phenomenon that seems to be unique to South African newspapers. Most papers in the US and the UK have stand-alone sports sections.
The promotions started a month ago, with adverts trumpeting that “finally” sport was going to get the attention it deserved – in its own section.
It would be worth comparing sport (and soccer) before the change before one realizes what has been lost (or gained?).
On October 8, ‘Sport Sunday’ (which is (was?) a very catchy name), ran from page 23 to 32. Now that’s not to say there was 10 pages of sports content. With two full page adverts and tons of other advertising, content took up about five and a half to six (broadsheet) pages worth (12 tabloid).
Soccer Life (which was previously found in the middle of the ‘Metro’ section, ran to 12 pages. Advertising support for this supplement, which its sales execs will have you believe has the “most reach” out of any section in the paper, has hardly been noticeable, save for men’s enlargement-type and cellphone ringtone ads. I have always felt that there has been a bit too much space for the section, with lengthly double-page features and huge (A4 size) pictures commonplace. Remove the poster front page from the equation, the one-or-two ads as well as the two full-page Sunday Times promotional adverts and you’re left with eight pages of content (including that enormous photo).
Now we have the bizarrely named ‘Soccer Life & Sport’ which, as Matthew Buckland writes, is disjointed. He suggests that because soccer is a type of sport, we should have something along the lines of ‘Sport & Soccer Life’. Typographically, the word ‘SPORT’ in all-caps seems to have been added to fill space on the poster cover.
The back is also a poster-type page, and the regular ads which were found in Soccer Life have found new homes throughout the new tabloid. Soccer, soccer and more soccer takes the focus until page 13 of the 24-pager. In the editor’s note in this week’s debut edition, one finds this gem: “We hope you aren’t confused by the amalgamation … it … offers you more sport … with the accent on local and overseas soccer.”
Almost as an afterthought, he writes: “But there a healthy rugby presence … and there’s some good cricket, too”. For “healthy”, substitute “three pages”. Ditto for “some good cricket”.
So we have 12 pages of soccer, a quarter of that of rugby and another quarter of cricket. One page of tennis, one of tv highlights and two pages of squashed-up results and statistics complete the “package”.
Don’t get me wrong – I am an avid soccer fan… What confuses me is the fact that with so many Sunday titles and Monday papers cemented in the soccer-crazed market (think City Press, Sunday Sun, Sunday World, Monday’s Daily Sun, Sowetan), just what is the Sunday Times doing?
Still no full-page ads to be seen though, which may be a blessing in disguise – lest that precious rugby/cricket content be cut down even further. At least the transition seems to have been done almost page for page (based on the 12-page Soccer Life, and 12 tabloid-pages worth of normal sport).
The paper has also reduced its advertising space – hardly a clever move. There’s no more space for lucrative 15cm strips spanning the length of the broadsheet backpage – a spot Nashua Mobile had pretty much staked out. The 10cm strip on the back of the tabloid hardly has the same effect (or revenue!).
They took a really nice, fresh, magazine-inspired design which used to have a home in the old ‘Soccer Life’ and forced it together with the Sunday Times main body style sheet.
One’s not too sure what the “Times” is trying to achieve with its “Soccer Life” brand. Its magazine title, which started off the obsession, is hardly a sales blockbuster.
There also seems to be a desperation for feedback (any feedback) from readers. At every turn, one is confronted by (what some sub-editor thought are witty) blurbs, asking, no, pleading you to (please!) e-mail the Sunday Times.
My hunch, and at this stage its simply a hunch, is that many more sections within the Times will become tabloid in the months or years to come. The main paper won’t change from broadsheet though, or there’d be nothing to wrap all the advertising supplements in – a la Saturday Star. Careers could very well soon become tabloid, as could the opinion (or what it calls “News & Opinion’) section. The off-on ‘News & Review’ (what’s the difference?!) may downsize as there’s no real reason for it to be broadsheet.
It’s worth noting that out of all the supplements the Sunday Times has launched over the past few years (Food & travel, New York Times, It’s my business), none have been broadsheet.
Coincidence?
We now have the “luxury” of a stand-alone sports section. What they forgot to mention was that it’d be a tabloid and as tight as a stingy uncle.
Previously, sport was “appended” to the back of the ‘Insight & Opinion’ section, a phenomenon that seems to be unique to South African newspapers. Most papers in the US and the UK have stand-alone sports sections.
The promotions started a month ago, with adverts trumpeting that “finally” sport was going to get the attention it deserved – in its own section.
It would be worth comparing sport (and soccer) before the change before one realizes what has been lost (or gained?).
On October 8, ‘Sport Sunday’ (which is (was?) a very catchy name), ran from page 23 to 32. Now that’s not to say there was 10 pages of sports content. With two full page adverts and tons of other advertising, content took up about five and a half to six (broadsheet) pages worth (12 tabloid).
Soccer Life (which was previously found in the middle of the ‘Metro’ section, ran to 12 pages. Advertising support for this supplement, which its sales execs will have you believe has the “most reach” out of any section in the paper, has hardly been noticeable, save for men’s enlargement-type and cellphone ringtone ads. I have always felt that there has been a bit too much space for the section, with lengthly double-page features and huge (A4 size) pictures commonplace. Remove the poster front page from the equation, the one-or-two ads as well as the two full-page Sunday Times promotional adverts and you’re left with eight pages of content (including that enormous photo).
Now we have the bizarrely named ‘Soccer Life & Sport’ which, as Matthew Buckland writes, is disjointed. He suggests that because soccer is a type of sport, we should have something along the lines of ‘Sport & Soccer Life’. Typographically, the word ‘SPORT’ in all-caps seems to have been added to fill space on the poster cover.
The back is also a poster-type page, and the regular ads which were found in Soccer Life have found new homes throughout the new tabloid. Soccer, soccer and more soccer takes the focus until page 13 of the 24-pager. In the editor’s note in this week’s debut edition, one finds this gem: “We hope you aren’t confused by the amalgamation … it … offers you more sport … with the accent on local and overseas soccer.”
Almost as an afterthought, he writes: “But there a healthy rugby presence … and there’s some good cricket, too”. For “healthy”, substitute “three pages”. Ditto for “some good cricket”.
So we have 12 pages of soccer, a quarter of that of rugby and another quarter of cricket. One page of tennis, one of tv highlights and two pages of squashed-up results and statistics complete the “package”.
Don’t get me wrong – I am an avid soccer fan… What confuses me is the fact that with so many Sunday titles and Monday papers cemented in the soccer-crazed market (think City Press, Sunday Sun, Sunday World, Monday’s Daily Sun, Sowetan), just what is the Sunday Times doing?
Still no full-page ads to be seen though, which may be a blessing in disguise – lest that precious rugby/cricket content be cut down even further. At least the transition seems to have been done almost page for page (based on the 12-page Soccer Life, and 12 tabloid-pages worth of normal sport).
The paper has also reduced its advertising space – hardly a clever move. There’s no more space for lucrative 15cm strips spanning the length of the broadsheet backpage – a spot Nashua Mobile had pretty much staked out. The 10cm strip on the back of the tabloid hardly has the same effect (or revenue!).
They took a really nice, fresh, magazine-inspired design which used to have a home in the old ‘Soccer Life’ and forced it together with the Sunday Times main body style sheet.
One’s not too sure what the “Times” is trying to achieve with its “Soccer Life” brand. Its magazine title, which started off the obsession, is hardly a sales blockbuster.
There also seems to be a desperation for feedback (any feedback) from readers. At every turn, one is confronted by (what some sub-editor thought are witty) blurbs, asking, no, pleading you to (please!) e-mail the Sunday Times.
My hunch, and at this stage its simply a hunch, is that many more sections within the Times will become tabloid in the months or years to come. The main paper won’t change from broadsheet though, or there’d be nothing to wrap all the advertising supplements in – a la Saturday Star. Careers could very well soon become tabloid, as could the opinion (or what it calls “News & Opinion’) section. The off-on ‘News & Review’ (what’s the difference?!) may downsize as there’s no real reason for it to be broadsheet.
It’s worth noting that out of all the supplements the Sunday Times has launched over the past few years (Food & travel, New York Times, It’s my business), none have been broadsheet.
Coincidence?
posted by BOb at
12:38
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