Updated Wednesday, Jan 19, 07:05 EST
TAKEAWAY: What started as a weekly part of Mint, the new Indian financial daily, has now also become a luxurious glossy monthly magazine. We revisit the original Lounge, which is still going strong, and introduce you to the mag version. PLUS: That page one surprise on the financial dailies AND: Three Finnish dailies go compact
Lounge, lifestyle and the good life in India
Images of Lounge the monthly mag, a new offering from Mint, the new financial daily of India which first published in 2007
Here are two recent covers of Lounge, the newspaper edition: on weekends, Lounge is the front page of Mint the newspaper
It was February 1, 2007 and we at Garcia Media were proud and excited to be part of the launch of India’s newest financial daily, Mint.
One of the most interesting aspects of that project was the creation of the weekend Lounge, a section with lifestyle features, commentary, great photography and tips on how to have a better life. In fact, the weekend newspaper is called Mint Lounge and, as you can see here, the front page is already a signal to the busy business reader that it is weekend and time to kick off his shoes, sit back with a good glass of Alfonso mango juice
and just plain relax in the Lounge.
The success of Lounge the weekly has given way to the new Lounge, the monthly glossy magazine that takes all that is good about life and hot to live it best to the next level.
So, on November 27, 2010, the publishers of Mint published the first Lounge magazine, which has been warmly received by readers and advertisers alike.
The team in charge of the monthly mag is exactly the same as that of the weekly Lounge that appears with the newspaper: editor – Priya Ramani; deputy editors – Sanjukta Sharma and Seema Chowdhry. Design team – Manoj Madhavan, Sandipan Das, Pranab Jyoti Gogoi, Raajan.
What we see with Lounge the mag is a trend globally——media houses are concentrating more on weekend products and the creation of high end publications, such as Lounge, that emphasize lifestyle, a topic that ranks at the top of every list of reader preferences. Not to mention that advertisers flock to the type of content one finds in such publications. I imagine that when Mint does its iPad app, Lounge will figure at the top of the list of contents to bring to the tablet.
More on weekend newspapers later this week when we introduce you to The Washington Post’s new Sunday Style section, which premieres January 23. We were honored to be involved in the creation of the new tab section for the Post. Stay tuned for that.
Page one surprises in the financial dailies today>
The Chinese headline surprise on page one of Germany’s Handelsblatt today
A big, vertical fashion photo on page one of the WSJ Europe: we have arrived!
It is a travel day for me as I fly from Vienna to Amsterdam, so time to stock up on newspapers at the Lufthansa lounge.
What a surprise to see that the page one excitement——visually speaking——today was to be found on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal Europe and Germany’s Handelsblatt, two projects in which Garcia Media has been honored to be involved.
First, The Wall Street Journal Europe: take a look at that long, vertical photo on page one, a fashion shot no less. Gasp here! And to think that 7 years ago when we were making prototypes to transform the WSJ Europe from broadsheet to tabloid, the size of the page one photo was a topic of lengthy discussions, and we were lucky if we got away with a three column photo, but not too deep. To go big, verrtical and with fashion all at once would have taken an act of Congress, and the removal of the What’s News legendary column. But, alas, they have solved that problem by moving the What’s News to page 2. Evolution. Change. Nice.
Germany’s financial daily, Handelsblatt, also in tabloid format since we worked on that change October 2009, is playful on its front page. It announces the opening of a Volkswagen plant in China, and it has the headline in Chinese. Good work from the Handelsblatt team, led by editor Gabor Steingart and art director Nils Werner.
Good news on the pay for content front
An encouraging bit of news today, courtesy of the International Herald Tribune.
Read about Steven Brill’s Journalism Online experiment
, which developed a system that allows newspapers to charge their most regular online visitors, has analyzed its preliminary data and found on average that advertising revenue and overall traffic did not decline significantly despite predictions otherwise.
According to Brill, newspapers found success with a pay model by setting a conservative limit for the number of articles visitors could read free each month, and by making clear that most readers would not be affected.
Finland: three local newspapers go compact
It was only five years ago that one read headlines of newspapers going from broadsheet to compact almost on a monthly basis, if nor more often. It was also the time when a new free newspaper appeared in some corner of the globe with the same regularity.
Today, we are more apt to read about newspaper circulations figures not measuring up or, more frequently, newspapers introducing a new iPad app as part of their repertoire.
But the news from the cold north today is about three regional newspapers in Finland which have gone compact. The newspapers are published by Alma Media’s subsidiary Pohjois-Suomen Media Oy.
The three newspapers are: Lapin Kansa, Kainuun Sanomat and Pohjolan Sanomat .
Read the full article/release:
http://www.pr-inside.com/print2355960.htm
TheMarioBlog post # 695