Look and Feel

I’m told that, the head honcho of a newspaper house – which has re-launched their flagship paper with a brand-new design - has gone on record to say that, “it (the new design) is as best as it can get”. I have no intention of taking him on that point - not b'coz he is known to take serious umbrage at even mildly critical comments in inconsequential bolgs such as this one, but because I - for one - genuinely like the new design ( tho’ I have heard mischievous critics quip, “it is “DNA four years too late”). But for me what’s more interesting to debate – is that eternal question of form (design) vs. content.

Surely look matters. Especially on first appearance. And, beauty is certainly not necessarily only skin deep when it comes to a ‘thought product’ like a newspaper. Great content can be made to look even more attractive by intelligent packaging and ease of navigation is sure to please even an old school die-hard reader.

I believe research indicates that, in a digital age – a newspaper even in its printed form must have a digital look and feel – especially if it wishes to attract new (and obviously) younger readers. And, Garcia is a master of 'digital' design. So far, so good. But, how does an older paper go about re-inventing itself for a younger audience.

The challenge to my mind is not about ‘turning off’ older readers by replacing a layout which they had gotten used to over the years with a new snazzy layout that can appear to be too much of a discontinuous change. The fears on this score – I think – are grossly overstated. But, for a ‘digital design’ to really work – one has to also re-engineer and completely over-haul the content – almost to the point of changing its DNA (no pun intended). It is here many publications fall-flat – because the risks of alienating the traditional readers are too high. And without doing much to the content, changes in design remain largely ‘cosmetic’.

New publications have a clear advantage here. They have the luxury, as it were, to marry content with design – to have a total offering that also reflects the personality of the paper. And, if the 2 (content and design can match up to each other – you do have a winning proposition. In the near past, MINT did this masterfully and DNA too was very successful in its attempt to differentiate with existing products. The Telegraph and Asian Age had done it in their own times. More recently, Forbes India has worked hard at doing the same in the Business Magazines genre and, in it's own modest way, OPEN can be another good example (tho’ I am yet unsure about its chances of commercial success).

MINT went a step further. It was planned truly as a multi-media offering for the future and its design and content delivery seamlessly transitioned across platforms – print, web, phone and even video-steaming.

But, only too often – do we have a new offering in the market – which looks smart but fail to deliver on its content.

The job is decidedly tougher for an existing newspaper – especially the larger and more established ones. Here, I liked the ToI formula – which follows, I suspect, the more classical (and, perhaps, conservative) route. Both for ToI and ET – they first went about incrementally and imperceptibly changing the content (which – detractors popularly called “dumbing down”) and then tinkered with the design. So, when DNA and HT were launched in Mumbai – ToI’s response was not to the drawing board and a new designer – but, instead, they invested heavily on content to make it – arguably – the best newspaper in the country. The same was, I believe, the brief of The Hindu to Garcia when he came to work on it a few years ago. But, then there are also wagging tongues – who say that these are also the 2 terribly designed newspapers in the country.

Even the staid Deccan Herald and the New Indian Express (down South) have also tried a change of wardrobe – but I’m not sure what it has done to their circulation and readership numbers.

Change with continuity seems to be the name of the game. It is surprising how many publications tend to clone their print format even in the digital (web) rendition. There must be some logic to that as well.

2000 Monkeys or a1 ton Gorilla.

In a just published article in BusinessWeek (click here to read) , Jon Fine ( who also keeps a media blog : FineOnMedia read here ) prophesies the imminent demise of the big-city papers. He still gives a chance to the “national” papers like the New York Times – even if for just a while longer.

It’s probably the latest of a million elegies ( it’s difficult to keep track – with one being written practically every hour ) for a medium that will go down in the history of the universe as the longest occupant of a death bed – giving even the ol’ man Bhishma a run for his record. But, I found his analysis quite interesting – tho’ it is primarily from an US market stand-point.

First, he thinks the main cause of their un-doing would be the dis-aggregation of the local advertisements ( especially Classifieds ) at the low end to “Ultra-cheap” on-line options such as “Craigslist click here ” or at the high-end to the free-monthly glossies.

Second, the content needs ( and consequently - “editorial energies” ) to Blogs or other independent “on-line endeavours” such as “MinnPost” ( which defines its mission “to provide high quality journalism to news-intense people of Minnesota click here to read).

And, for those publications who are still deluding themselves with the hope of garnering revenues from the “sub-classified local segment (such a pizzerias and dry-cleaners) – he quotes the CEO of a Local Media Research firm, who compares local advertisements to “2,000 – two pound monkeys” ( as opposed to a 1 ton Gorilla – therefore making it a very “unorganized and dirty business”).

I am not sure how far the comparison would exactly hold true for a market like India. In any case there aren’t too many “big-city papers” of any significant size left – with the exception of a few ( non – Hindi ) vernaculars and just a couple of English dailies ( The Telegraph and The Hindu - tho’ they may not like to be called Regional or Local) and the same logic may not quite apply to either of these 2 categories.

By the same token, India doesn't have "national papers" like the New York Times, USA Today or WSJ ( tho' MINT is trying to be a bit of the last ). What we have - I would submit - are a bunch of 'multi-local' papers. Even the giant banyan-tree of a ToI - to my mind - is an "umbrella mother brand" under which it houses several localised editions (much like what a Brooke Bond- Lipton or Tatas do in having separate blends of tea for different states under the same brand name). So is the case in the vernacular space with a Bhaskar, Jagran and Hindustan or The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle and the New Indian Express in the south. In doing so, all of them try to straddle both ends of the market - wooing the national advertisers at one level and mopping up the local business and classifieds at another.

While this dual pronged strategy may work to hedge the risks for Indian newspapers - at least for sometime to come, I think the real game-changer could be the content back-lash, which Fine talks about. In dumbing themselves down to cater to all consituencies newspapers may be losing their plot to the more interactive media options available today thanks to the net. I am, therefore, a little tempted to quote from the 2 comments posted on the article, which lends support to his thesis.

“…… Big city newspapers have already been replaced by blogs, video postings and discussion forums ~ at least for the news addict demographic. Why read what some edited hack piece says about a political speech when I can review the entire thing online and evaluate it for myself? And why would I want to read it on a piece of dead tree, if I can instead debate it with others who are interested, and follow the links to every piece of pertinent information we can find ?”


“…a former daily reporter I used to pick up the local papers when I traveled around the US -- now I just get the Times, the Journal and the FT when I can find it -- most dailies are trying to be all things and hit lowest common denominator…….”

What do you think ??