'Koran Tempo' launches a radical facelift

'Koran Tempo' launches a radical facelift

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Two students aboard a train from their campus of the University
of Indonesia in Depok, West Java heading to Kota, West Jakarta
looked surprised when they received the Monday edition of Koran
Tempo daily that was half of the usual seven column broad sheet
size.

"Is this the new look of the paper? It is similar to the size
of tabloids, right?" said one student to the other while starting
to open the paper's 48 pages.

The publisher of Koran Tempo claimed that the new look was
really "radical".

"There has been a growing trend in the international
community, especially in Europe, for publishers to switch to a
more compact size instead of the broad sheet. Sooner or later, we
would have to follow the trend. That's why we decided to start
the change now," the paper's chief editor Toriq Hadad told The
Jakarta Post.

Toriq cited several examples, like El Pais in Spain, The
Independent and The Times in Britain, which have adopted the more
compact format from their initial broad sheet layout.

"The Malaysian New Straits Times which has a 159-year old
tradition of using broad sheet has eventually decided to turn to
the compact size after newcomer daily The Star that uses the
compact copy managed to beat the former's circulation," he said.

He added that the change had saved The New Strait Times' face,
which later managed to raise its circulation by 10 percent.

In its editorial on Monday, the publisher also said that the
compact size was also part of efforts to lure young readers, who
have high mobility, focus on certain issues, are progressive and
more informal, with the more handy and eye-catching graphic
design of the paper.

"The compact format also opens more opportunities for
advertisers to place full-page ads with less money to spend," it
said.

Toriq said that a special team of four editorial staffers had
worked on the new format for a year.

The team of four comprises Purwanto Setiadi, Yosep Suprayogi,
Yuyun Nurrachman and Eko Punto Pambudi.

"They had been working with dummies before they finally came
up with the present format," he said.

Fortunately, the board of directors agreed to the proposed
format.

According to Toriq, the change was nothing to do with slashing
production costs.

"The change has required us to recruit two new photographers
to help produce more pictures," he said.

Some editorial staffers also had to come earlier in the
morning to finish some parts of the 48-page edition, he added.

Koran Tempo currently sells between 140,000 and 170,000 copies
daily.