Do you remember a few years ago when The Enquirer and The Post announced they were reducing the size of their printed pages and pitched it as a "better fit" for readers because the new size would be "handier?" Sure, they saved a lot of money on newsprint, but, you know, it was all for the readers....
Well, this week CityBeat changes to a new page size, but I'll spare you the tortured explanations of how less is really more and how we're doing it as a service to you. Basically, our longtime printer went out of business and we've changed to a new printer, which necessitates a move to the smaller size.
That said, we've decided to use this opportunity to improve a few things in CityBeat and tweak others. There are some notable changes in appearance besides the page size — the most important being the overall print quality.
We have the capability now to run a lot more color in the paper, both for stories and for ads, and we're going to use it. This week's issue probably looks brighter and more colorful, and that will likely increase in the coming weeks and months.
The bottom line is everything should look sharper, cleaner and clearer. Of course, I'm writing this before the paper goes to press, so I could be eating my words on Wednesday.
But I doubt it.
Speaking of Wednesday, that's now officially our publication date. Up until now CityBeat has been a Thursday newspaper, but our new printer relationship allows us to deliver the papers everywhere on Wednesday — giving readers and advertisers one more day of interaction before the weekend. That's one more day to discover movie times, club listings and gallery openings and plan your activities.
The other big changes are in the arts and entertainment section, where we've rearranged the sections a bit due to new deadline schedules. Arts now comes after Music and is followed by Diner and Film. Savage Love has moved back into in the Classifieds section alongside the personal ads.
Then there's Music, where we're introducing a bunch of new features. As you know, we've prided ourselves on CityBeat's superior music coverage from Day 1, particularly our coverage of the local music scene, and so we decided to add more to the mix. Every week you'll find expanded concert previews (Sound Advice), a section of CD reviews (Short Takes), more interviews with local musicians (What R U Listening 2) and Music Editor Mike Breen's take on the music world (Minimum Gauge) — in addition to the usual collection of interviews, columns and club listings.
The city's best music coverage just got bigger and better. Now there's something that's "handier." ...
On an unrelated note, CityBeat would like to welcome ArtWorks to our world headquarters building in beautiful downtown Cincinnati. The nonprofit organization — which runs summer arts programs for kids as well as the high-profile Big Pig Gig and Bats Incredible projects — is settling into ground-floor space that will provide it a higher public profile.
Right now ArtWorks is using the front space to organize and publicize artists' designs for the bat sculptures that will soon grace downtown streets; offices and meeting rooms will be in the back. The front space eventuallywill become the Time Warner Gallery and display artwork by summer program apprentices as well as local artists.
We're excited to have the ArtWorks folks as neighbors and wish them well with their upcoming public art project. Batter up!
