Alliance Changes Page Size, Times Redesigns its Look

Pages in the three daily “alliance” newspapers became 1.5 inches narrower on Aug. 20.

On that day, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Northwest Arkansas Times and Benton County Daily Record all switched to a new printing format, making the printed part of a page 11.5 inches wide instead of 13 inches.

Paul Smith, general manager of the D-G, said the new page size will save the alliance newspapers about 7 percent — or $1 million — on newsprint costs per year. It will also save a lot of trees by cutting down on the amount of newsprint needed per press run by 2.5 tons, or 900 tons per year. The D-G made the change in page size for its editions statewide.

The D-G, owned by Wehco Media Group of Little Rock, entered into an “alliance” in August 2000 with Community Publishers Inc. of Bentonville, which owns the other two dailies.

Smith said 44 newspapers in Arkansas already have the 11.5-inch pages.

The Morning News, which competes against the alliance papers, made the change to the smaller pages last year.

With the change in page size, the Times launched a redesign that includs a new flag (replacing the “sunrise” flag in use since 1995) and a new typeface.

“We just wanted to have a cleaner look,” said Greg Harton, executive editor of the Times. “The prior look was right for its time. It was time to clean things up and simplify it a bit … especially the flag, to make it less cluttered.”

Harton said he has had primarily positive feedback from readers concerning the redesign.