Honey, I shrunk the newspaper!

News Corp Australia has announced it will be shrinking the size of its mastheads in the Northern Territory and regional Queensland over the coming months, and shifting editorial strategy to focus on more, shorter stories in these titles.

Print audiences totaling more than 1.5 million people a month will see their local papers change in size to be smaller, shrinking from 405mm to 350mm once this initiative is fully implemented. This change brings the papers in-line with News Corp tabloids in the US.

The NT News, Sunday Territorian, and the Centralian Advocate will be the first cabs off the rank, with the new formats being introduced in mid-August, followed by the Queensland regional papers part of the News Regional Media network.

Sorry, I got distracted. You stuck your cracker where?

"We want to make sure the story count is higher. Newspaper readers like lots of little stories"

In the media and communications world people understand the inherent truth of the old saying, “content is king”.

Editor of the NT News, Matt Williams, told Telum research shows readers are more engaged by shorter stories. “We want to make sure the story count is higher. Newspaper readers like lots of little stories - there will still be a lead and a picture story or a picture lead on a page and then lots of smaller briefs”.

Media is, ultimately, a business though, so there must be a commercial reason for this change too.

Peter Fray, Professor of Journalism Practice and Co-Director of the Centre for Media Transition at UTS said, “in the paper game, there are two main levers: wages and pages. So I guess we ought to be thankful, the NT News has gone with pages.

“Consumers may enjoy shorter stories. They certainly do so on their phones. In a sense, shorter is one way of keeping the newshole the same.”

Country strong

Regional media is often seen as “tier two” for PR campaigns in Australia, but the combined print audience of the titles undergoing this change at News Corp, north of 1.5 million, is greater than the total population of Adelaide which at the time of the last census was just under 1.3 million.

Recently, a collective of media houses including SCA, WIN, Prime, ACM, News Corp Australia, Imparja and Grant Media have teamed up to raise awareness of the impact of regional media through a campaign called Boomtown. The campaign claims 8.8 million Aussies call regional Australia home.

The communications opportunity

"Now, more than ever, a razor-sharp angle with the end audience in mind must be at the core of every pitch that lands in every journalist's inbox" - Bessie Hassan, Head of PR and Communications at Finder

If this change at News Corp is a sign of things to come across the wider regional media industry, what does this mean for communications professionals working with regional media?

From a PR perspective, General Manager of FleishmanHillard Australia, Jenna Orme said the move is both a communications challenge, and a communications opportunity.

“Our attention spans are shrinking, yet there's an overwhelming amount of content being produced from apps to news sites, all vying for our attention,” she said.

Jenna added the changes to the News Corp regional titles “will encourage us an industry to be more single-minded with what we're trying to communicate”.

Head of PR and Communications at Finder, Bessie Hassan agrees. She said the changes are a sign of the times. "Modern audiences crave content that's diverse yet digestible. On face value, a higher story count can present opportunities for PR professionals. However, lessening column inches means now, more than ever, a razor-sharp angle with the end audience in mind must be at the core of every pitch that lands in every journalist's inbox.

"The audience who reads the content is time-poor, as is the journalist. So, really, what is the vital information? What makes this news different? And perhaps most importantly, what can it do without? Put yourself in the audience's shoes - and not just the journalist's."

What's the headline news here?

As Peter Fray asks, “the key question is: will [this] affect the overall experience, will it keep readers happy, and what will it do to revenues? Are the ad shapes going to be smaller and therefore less expensive? We won’t know the answers to that for a while.”

There are 8.8 million Australians living in country Australia. The media and communications industry will no doubt be looking closely at the impact of these changes for their businesses and their clients.