By: E&P Staff Over the years, The New York Times has tended to think big, but tomorrow it will have to adapt to a new smaller-is- beautiful era.
In a front page note to readers this morning, the paper stated that the print edition they will hold tomorrow will be decidedly more compact.
Beginning Monday, the Times "will reduce the width of its pages by an inch and a half," to a 12-inch standard, the paper declared.
"The move will cut newsprint expenses and, in some printing press locations, will make special configurations unnecessary. Slight modifications in design will preserve the look and texture of The Times, with all existing features and sections, and" -- it admitted at the end -- "somewhat fewer words per page."
The Times had originally planned to make the shift next March. It is far from the first paper to shrink in size in recent years -- see USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and more -- but the new look tomorrow promises to cause much comment.
When the company announced the coming size change in June 2006, Times Editor Bill Keller wrote in a staff memo the reduction would shrink the news hole by 11%. Now the Times pegs it an 10% but says that about half of that will be balanced by an increase in the number of pages per day.
Papers in the New York Times Co.'s New England and Regional Media divisions also are slimming down. The Boston Globe is reducing its web with from 50 inches to 48 inches in Q4. Along with four of its regional papers, The Ledger in Lakeland, Fla., reported it was trimming its size from a 54-inch web width to 48 inches.
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