Another weekly newspaper has switched to a tabloid format, reports holdthefrontpage. The Brighouse Echo, after 123 years as a broadsheet (history here), published its first tabloid issue last week.
The West Yorkshire title, published by Johnston Press, made the switch after reader research. "The view was about 8-1 in favour of the change, which convinced us that it was the right thing to do," said editor Stephen Firth.
The cover price of the Echo, which sells 5,600 copies a week, remains at 50p. But which format do you prefer? The sad thing about the move towards tabloids is the the tendency to follow the brash red-top formula rather than adopt The Times's approach. Did the Echo put both forward to readers during their research, I wonder. Surely, readers want more stories on the front page of their local paper.
