Newspaper Design Payoff

I am just catching up with some summer reading, including the July Editor&Publisher, in which a story covers 10 papers that “do it right.” Included is the Bakersfield Californian, which hired an outside consultant to lead the staff in a redesign of the paper.

The high-profile consultant no doubt commanded a pile of dough for the work, but did it grow the business? Initially, yes, though it may have been the Hawthorne effect at work. Single-copy sales were up 13 percent, according to E&P, and subscription stops (starts weren’t reported, so they probably weren’t good) were down 20 percent. There were an estimated 8,000 stops in 2005, from a circulation around 65,000 or so.

After the initial buzz wore off, circulation leveled off, despite the redesign and major content changes. The Census web site reports the Bakersfield area is growing to the tune of nearly 10,000 folks per year. So penetration continues to decline.

I don’t mean to pick on the Californian (I did some design consulting for them many years ago, and no, I don’t know if it helped the biz!!!). But I do wonder if all the format, design and content changes in the dead-trees newspaper product really are worth the time and effort. I have been threatening to do a research project along these lines, and maybe I should. One day.

Coming soon: More on Design and Design Darwinisn.