By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

On Saturdays, a magazine-like and shorter Boston Globe

IMG_0036If you get the print edition of The Boston Globe, you’ll notice something different today. The paper has undergone a considerable redesign — it looks much more like a magazine, and the Metro section starts on page two. A lifestyle section called Good Life comes after the A-section.

At 42 pages, the paper is 10 pages shorter than last Saturday’s. In a page-one message that does not appear on the Globe’s website, editor Brian McGrory writes, “Readers will still get all the news we always offer, compressed into the A section for a faster, hopefully easier reading experience.”

The opinion pages have been cut from two to one. Last Saturday, the right-hand page was filled with letters from readers.

The Saturday paper has always been the weakest for daily papers, with significantly lower circulation* and not much in the way of ads. As print advertising continues to wane, it makes sense for the Globe to put its resources into other areas, such as the Sunday print paper and digital.

Still, it will be interesting to see what customers who pay for Saturday home delivery have to say about this.

*More: I just looked at figures from the Alliance for Audited Media, and I learned that the Globe’s print circulation on Saturdays is actually better than it is on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This is a topic I’ll be revisiting, but for now I just want to put it up as a marker for future discussion.

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8 Comments

  1. Jerry Ackwrman

    Physically the Globe is now about the same size, and is resembling the same section layout as 40 or so years ago.

  2. Rob

    Why don’t they just admit it and say were making a smaller paper on Saturdays to save money. Magazine style has no value …in fact the metro region section starting on page 2 looks strange. Even the sports page looks different

  3. Judy Warner

    I love it! Innovation in print. It’s about time.

  4. Paul Lehrman

    If I recall correctly, the original NorthWest Weekly section has more pages than this entire paper. At least it seems that way,
    Depressing…

  5. Laurence Kranich

    And on Mondays, no more G section at all. Saw that coming.

    • Dan Kennedy

      @Laurence: The Monday feature section is still there, but it’s not a standalone today. It starts on B14.

      • Laurence Kranich

        Yes, down to 5 pages instead of the 20 tabloid pages we had a year or so ago. We’re still a lot better off than readers of the New York Daily News which completely eliminated features and fired most of their critics a couple of weeks ago.

  6. Robert Bliss

    Could the Saturday circulation be larger than Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday because lots of subscribers receive Globe home delivery Thursday-Sunday to reduce the cost of a full week of home delivery?

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