The Burlington Free Press launched its much-anticipated new daily newspaper format Thursday with a cover story concerning the opposition to wind power in Vermont. FreePressMedia, the local subsidiary of Gannett, which publishes the Free Press, spent $2.4 million on a press rebuild in order to print the new format.
The tabloid-sized newspaper ran a nearly full-page picture on the front, with a strip ad on the bottom and a weather teaser. The four-section paper included two stapled sections â Innovate,’which is its weekly business section, and â Weekend.’The back page, unlike typical daily tabs like the New York Post which includes news, had a full-page ad.
Readers will notice that there is four-color throughout, including the obituaries, that the features include large photos and that in the initial issue the sports section did not contain any box scores or agate (neither local nor national statistics, scores or results). The Thursday edition in recent months has been the second largest paper of the week, next to the Sunday edition. The Friday edition sports section had limited agate.
In its 185-year history, the Free Press was always a broadsheet. The new format (11’wide x 15’in length) is taller and a little wider than Seven Days, the Burlington alternative weekly tabloid, which also uses a feature front, color throughout and employs, like the new Free Press, a table of contents to help guide the reader.The headline fonts are also new.
â We are excited to announce a new format for our printed edition which puts us on the cutting edge in our industry ‘an innovation in both style and content. This new approach in print is making the newspaper fresh again while complementing the immediacy of our news coverage on our website, on mobile and tablet apps. President and Publisher Jim Fogler said in a statement upon the launch on Thursday.
Fogler said the full scope of FreePressMediaâ s new â compact smart edition,’as he called it, enhancements includes:
A shift from broadsheet page size to a new compact smart format that gives the Burlington Free Press printed edition more of a magazine-feel with design upgrades.
Color on every single page, which will give us color obits, comics, and TV week in color.
This new, easy-to-use format features a modular approach to advertising display which will provide greater impact and ad-size flexibility for advertisers.
Our easy-to-use compact smart format incorporates print and online content into a comprehensive subscription model.
Fogler said at the heart of the new reader experience for printed edition readers will be the approach pioneered since 2009 in the Free Press’â passion-topics’sections: in-depth reporting, rich photographs and eye-catching design in Green Mountain, Savorvore, ARTSbtv and Innovate. The Free Press will also introduce a new passion section to the line-up called â Round Here on Saturdays that defines life in Vermont and the Vermont way.
Editor Michael Townsend said: â The new Free Press will be clean, elegant, simple, compelling, commanding, photo driven, text driven, compact and easy to handle, full color every page, narrative driven, big with impact, provocative, engaging, a definite sense of place, local, well written, what you didn't read elsewhere, far different than any other, complementary of online with its own unique personality. In addition to this new-look, the Burlington Free Press will deliver the most accountability reporting and narrative writing in all of Vermont.â
FreePressMedia recently changed its subscription model, as part of an historic shift toward digital-first publishing. The new model provides the flexibility of how, when and where its readers want to consume the local news and information in Vermont. Free Press readers will see significant digital enhancements in the next few months, the statement said, including more video and photos, and a renewed focus on the topics that matter most to Vermonters.
FreePressMedia also re-did its Web site. It said it has launched new and improved digital platforms for readers to access news and information, including a more robust mobile site and a tablet-friendly reader experience.