Narrower Pages Won’t Mean Less News or Smaller Type

T

he Richmond Times-Dispatch will become a little narrower this week, but we're confident your newspaper experience won't be any different because we are not making major changes to our content. And we are not changing the size of our type.

We are following an industry trend in making broadsheet pages an inch narrower (11 inches instead of 12 inches). The length of broadsheet pages will not change. Pages in our tab sections such as Channels and Metro Business will not be as deep.

We will be phasing in this change over the next several days as we use up our remaining supply of wider paper.

Tomorrow and Tuesday, the image area on each page will be smaller, but the page itself will remain 12 inches wide. On Wednesday, most subscribers will receive a paper on the narrower paper.

The narrower page size is quickly becoming the standard among U.S. newspapers, many of which have already made the conversion. The standardization makes it easier for advertisers to place ads in multiple markets. In addition, this size helps all newspapers conserve newsprint and ink.

This is another step in our efforts to cut costs in these difficult economic times. By saving money on paper -- one of the biggest line items in our budget -- we will be positioning ourselves to add content and improve the newspaper as the economy rebounds.

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Our pages will be narrower, but a newspaper-wide team led by special projects editor Tom Bond has gone to great lengths to keep other necessary adjustments to a minimum. The team's top goals were to maintain readability and preserve the paper's design and content.

"While we may have moved the furniture around on some pages, the basic design and organization is intact," Bond said. "

The Times-Dispatch remains very familiar and friendly with favorite columns and features where readers expect to find them.

"Our frame may be a little skinnier, but we are just as fit as ever. We are committed to evolving with the times, remaining true to our design, and to being a solid, traditional paper with a serious look, yet fresh, elegant, and sophisticated."

Bond and his team worked for almost a year on this project, looking for ways to save space and improve the paper.

Here is what is not changing:

As stated earlier, the type is not changing. "Because readability remains the highest priority for us, the most important thing readers need to know is that we are not making the point size of our story type smaller, same with type in our obits, sports, and business agate," Bond said.

• We're not cutting any comics, games, advice columns, or puzzles. We're not shrinking any of them, either. Instead, we are adding space each day in the Find section to make room for all the comics, columns, games, and puzzles plus the TV grid. The pages have been reorganized for easier use.

• We're not cutting any standing features out of the paper.

  . . .

So what is changing? Here's the rundown:

• Channels: Some of our most significant changes come in the weekly Channels section, where we will be adding eight pages and redesigning some of the pages. The reasons for the changes in Channel are spatial -- because tabloid pages become shallower, we can't continue to list as many channels on each grid page.

We're also adding two over-the-air local digital channels to the grids (WCVE's 23.1 and WRLH's 35.2) as well as the Lifetime Movie Network. To get those channels in the smaller grids, we've pulled eight premium movie stations, four news channels, and three music channels out of the grids. But we will continue to give you the listings for those stations.

• Classifieds: The Find sections will have a fresh look with a new index and updated art for classification headers. In addition, the comics and puzzle pages have been reorganized.

• Movie listings: The movies page in Thursday's Weekend section has been tweaked to make more efficient use of space. In addition, the movie grid and the movie ads will now be on the same page for ease of use.

• Obituaries: Paid death notices will feature larger photos that span the width of the column. Photos are free of charge and are available on any obituary that contains 12 lines or more of text.

• Celebrations: The photos that run with 50-year (and beyond) wedding anniversary announcements will now be two columns instead of one.

• Stock listings: By making more efficient use of the space on the Money and Markets page that runs in the Business section Tuesday through Saturday, we are adding four stocks to the "Widely Held" listings.

• Weather map: We are losing one piece of information -- yesterday's temperatures will no longer be included in the national cities list.

If you have comments or concerns, please call 649-6199 starting tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. We'll have two dozen people answering that line for a couple of weeks for those of you who would prefer to see a week's worth of papers before commenting.

Contact Senior Editor Daniel Finnegan at (804) 649-6427 or .