Media agencies: Fairfax switch to SMH and The Age is the right move – but ad page rates must drop
Australia’s media agency bosses have warned Fairfax it will face a tough negotiation over ratecard when it resizes its flagship mastheads The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
One of the reasons Fairfax has taken so long to move to the compact, tabloid-sized format is because of commercial concerns. The experience in other markets including the UK where broadsheets have converted to compact was that although print costs were reduced and there were slight sales uplifts, advertisers felt they were getting less for their money – particularly when it came to full page ads.
Simon Davies, head of publishing at media agency OMD, told Mumbrella: “Obviously it is a different format so you would expect pricing to change off the back of that. We have seen this in the UK where you have had a number of broadsheets change to a compact format so we will be tapping into those experiences over there.”
The move is likely to see sales conversations based around a seven column rather than 11 column grid. Davies said: “Certainly for a 55×11 full page, you wouldn’t be paying for a 38×7 full page.”
I never recall fairfax actually charging above a tabloid rate for a full page anyway… and dont get me started on their distress rates…
Surprising to see the agencies coming out and demanding rate cuts…actually surprising they’re even here, shouldn’t they all be over in Cannes
What a ridiculous negotiating position for the media agencies to take up.
Agree with Tony. Ridiculous. You buy a full page so it’s the only content on that page. Size does not change this fact. And, as the article mentions, when the UK papers switched there was a slight increase in audience…more eyeballs usually means higher rate.
Just a quick one, but aren’t newspaper rates calculated at CCM rates…so by default a 55×11 will already decrease to a 38×7 rate. Fairfax are still within their right to increase their CCM rate to ensure that the 38×7 will cost the same as a 55×11 otherwise revenue will most certainly decrease by around 30%
I have a 40 inchTV, does that mean advertisers pay less to reach my screen than large TV screen owners?
PS Try and read a large screen format on a crowed train or plane.
based on this media agency logic, fxj should have INCREASED the size of the paper 2x … then they could have charged 2x for the ads and all financial problems would be solved!
those jokers in pyrmont didn’t even see this completely obvious fix to their problems!! 😉
The delays on changing to a compact size had little to do with ad rates — Fairfax has successfully negotiated this issue many times before when shrinking sections such as Spectrum. The reason for past delays has been because of the difficulty of adjusting the metro printing presses – hence the shutting of Tullamarine and Chullora .