(no subject)

[ewx]

Movement towards sensible-sized newspapers continues. Personally my favourite newspaper has been A4 magazine format as long as I've been reading it, which has the dual advantages of being easy to read and clearly distinguishable from tabloid rags.

Comments

[aldabra]

Private Eye?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

The Economist (http://www.economist.com/)

[pm215]

I'm mildly boggled by the implication here:

Others think [...] that The Times's decision gives [the Telegraph] a great opportunity to mop up hundreds of abandoned broadsheet readers.

that there are a sizeable number of people who care more about the format of their paper than the content...

[gerald_duck]

I'm sure there are, actually. It's easy to see how an embattled upper-middle class might cling to such feeble status symbols now the bowler hat and brolly are gone, and they can't afford nearly as nice a PDA as those crass nouveau-riche oiks.

While most of those are probably Torygraph readers already (though they also buy the Daily Mail for their wives, of course) it's nonetheless possible some of them remained loyal to the Times when it got bought out by Murdoch.

[reddragdiva]

The tabloid look suits the Times, since editorially it really is the Sun with bigger words these days.

[spodlife]

My favourite part of the Guardian is G2 :-)

[senji.livejournal.com]

Doom! Doom doom doom!

But broadsheet format is nicer.

*sigh*

[ewx.livejournal.com]

How so?

[gerald_duck]

It can be used as a penis extension when unfolded in a busy train carriage, and can help distribute marmalade more evenly over a slice of toast at the breakfast table.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

You are Paddington Bear and I... penis extension? Well, maybe not.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Broadsheet format is probably nicer if you're a tall man with long arms in your own living room. I *like* tabloid format.

TBH I'll be happiest when they make them all book sized ;-)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I think I fit the physical description but can't stand broadsheet...

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't like them because they're unweildly. I've always held the belief that if you get bigger, they get less unweildly, and so can understand why people like Sneji might like big pages with nice layout and big pictures, as they didn't have to struggle with the "how on earth do I read this giant thing?!?!" problems...
Why don't you like them then?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

They're still unwieldy. It's not just the difficulty of holding them, which would indeed be reduced by being physically bigger (but I still find them inconvenient at that), but they take up lots of space too, meaning you have to fold them up so they'll fit (into whatever space you're using); which kind of eliminates any advantage they might have had from the extra size in the first place...

[senji.livejournal.com]

I find turning pages is a lot of hassle for anything over about B5 sized (A4 is too large to hold open for any length of time). The advantages of the broadsheet format are (a) large pictures (b) you can fold the paper conveniently to fit an entire story in view and not have to worry about page turning until you're already doing a context switch.

Tabloid format and A4 magazine format are simultanously too small for sensibly sized pictures and stories, and too large for convenient reading unfolded.

[mtbc100.livejournal.com]

Quite. Broadsheets are just too awkward. I wrote in favour of sensible-sized newspapers in a GCSE Media Studies essay, thus demonstrating that I have written about things that irk me for many years now.