Koran Tempo launches major 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.