Ich bin ein Berliner

In a post last week about rethinking the print edition of the daily newspaper, I quoted this bit from Steve Welker in the Exploding Newsroom group on Facebook:

Berliner format, 12.4 inches by 18.5. Sames money on newsprint, but a full-page ad has more impact than it would in a tab so advertisers like it. Shows off shorter stories better. See the Lafayette (Ind.) Journal & Courier for an example. The Europeans are way ahead of the U.S. on this.

My colleague Mary Yanni here at The Star-Ledger was kind enough to pass along this front page from the Lafayette paper, in case you were curious to see what it looks like:

And, lo and behold, here comes a comment on my earlier post from Henry Howard of the Journal & Courier:

First off, thanks for the props on the Berliner. It’s been nearly 18 months since we launched the new Journal and Courier in Lafayette, and our readers really love it.

Several of the suggestions here rang true in our redesign: more local news, shorter stories. Readers were concerned at first with the smallness of the paper, but were won over by the fact that it is easier to handle, the color is amazing and we’re getting more news in.

In our first marketing survey since the Berliner launch, fourth-fifths of respondents said they prefer the new paper. And more people said that they were spending more time with the paper and reading it more frequently. How does that compare with other news you’ve read about the industry?

That said, I’m guessing that newspapers will have to adjust their strategy, given their current size. I don’t see a lot of papers paying for a new press (pretty much a requirement to go Berliner) in these economic times.

There’s other good stuff in that comment thread, too, from Ryan Sholin, Zac Echola and Peter Brantley. Worth taking a look.