A Berkshire weekly is sporting a new look this week after it underwent a wholesale makeover.

The Maidenhead Advertiser series relaunched itself yesterday, taking heed of readers’ views following extensive market research.

The Advertiser said the main point which kept cropping up was that many readers didn’t have time to read the whole paper so they tried to revamp it to make it better ‘value for time’.

As well as introducing a cleaner page design, new typefaces, shorter stories and more news in briefs, each section of the paper now has colour-coded page straps to aid navigation.

All stories are tagged with the area they relate to and page leads have a summary so readers can get the gist of the main news from just a short scan.

Other new features include a range of new columnists, greater focus on the paper’s core area of Maidenhead and in-depth interviews by editor Martin Trepte with key authority figures about the important local issues.

The Advertiser has redesigned its leisure section, rebranding it ‘The Zone’, to give readers a one-stop-shop for entertainment news and part of which will be shared with Slough and Windsor Express series.

The old style Advertiser (left) and this week’s new-look edition

Martin said: “In our research no-one had a bad word to say about the Advertiser. Readers all liked it but some just did not buy it every week for reasons of time.

“In a climate of falling newspaper sales, our redesign has tried to address this issue by making the paper easier to navigate and a quicker, more satisfying read.”

Jeremy Spooner, chief executive of parent company Baylis Media, added: “The re-launch is supported by an extensive marketing campaign and represents a significant investment in the editorial content of our titles.

“As a leading independent publisher, Baylis Media places enormous value on editorial and this underlines our commitment to local news.”

Comments

Sue Nelson (25/09/2009 11:10:42)
I began my career at the Maidenhead Advertiser as a cub reporter (Sue Johnson in those days) nurtured by the likes of Don Seal and Tony Anderson. I’ll always have a soft spot for the paper and with the new design see that the paper is doing what it’s always done best – listened to what the readers want. Great job!