The Observer has announced that it is ditching three of its monthly magazines – Observer Sport Monthly, Observer Music Monthly and Observer Woman. It will be retaining its Observer Food Monthly magazine and redesigning the paper to incorporate business and finance coverage into three main sections of the paper (news, sport and review); travel will be moved into an expanded version of the weekly Observer Magazine.
To me, this is a crazy business and marketing decision. It is taking away all the elements of the paper that make it different from its rivals and instead making it a much blander, more disposable version of itself. In September, the paper was revealed to be under threat from closure, but instead its parent, GNM, has clearly decided that it would be best just to neuter it by removing all its truly exclusive content.
In this day and age, news has almost no exclusive value. I can’t remember the last time I looked at The Observer’s front page and thought “wow, that’s a story I’ve never seen before…”. The truth is that I read almost all of my news online, so when I come to Sunday, I am looking for a different reading experience – one with more indepth analysis and specialist information.
The Observer Monthly magazines were something that no other Sunday paper had to offer. Sure, most of them have some kind of magazine and The Sunday Times has its Style fashion supplement. But no other Sunday paper went as indepth into music, sport or really lengthy pieces about women’s issues, such as what makes a 21st century parent or infertility.
To me, this is a perfect example of when cost-cutting happens to the wrong part of a brand. I wonder now how many people will continue to buy The Observer without its value-adding supplements to look forward to…..
Do you agree with my views? Or am I wrong? Let me know your thoughts.
November 10, 2009 at 6:47 pm |
Totally agree. The order in which I rad the Observer is: sport, review, Sport/Music Monthly, magazine, main paper (starting with comment). I still value their news, but mainly the interna(ional stuff.
They’ve obviously struggled with where to make cuts and I’m not sure there would have been any answer to satisfy everyone, but this does seem strange – the Sport especially was like a mini institution.