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February 12, 2012

Scott Underwood: TV section alterations on the way

By Scott Underwood The Herald Bulletin

ANDERSON, Ind. — Two Sundays ago, The Herald Bulletin introduced a new product called Click, replacing the TV Week section. Like TV Week, Click includes TV listings grids, sports listings and Sudoku and crossword puzzles.

Unlike TV Week, Click is a broadsheet section. TV Week was a tab-sized publication. We switched to broadsheet to provide a section to better hold our Sunday advertising inserts, which tended to fall out of the tab-sized TV Week. Click is a bit less expensive to produce, which helps minimize single-copy and subscription costs for our customers.

We also wanted to add more celebrity news and redesign the section cover to make it more appealing. Click accomplishes both objectives.

However, we heard from a couple dozen readers who don’t like Click. Many said the type in the TV listings grids is too small. Others said they miss some of the channel listings that used to appear in TV Week. Some said they prefer the tab size of the old section.

It is difficult to respond to the concerns of each individual reader by taking action, knowing that — as in the world of physics — each action is accompanied by an equal and opposite reaction. If we make a change based on a limited number or requests, we’re apt to upset as many readers as we’ve pleased.

In this case, though, we are able to react to a body of criticism by making some of the suggested changes. Beginning with next Sunday’s Click, you’ll find the following:

  • The type in the listings grids is larger, roughly equal to the size the type had been in the TV Weekly grids.
  •  We’ve added Speed, CMT, Big 10 Network and Hallmark back into the grid listings.
  • We’ve moved the DISH and DTV channel numbers from the right of the grids back to the left, next to the cable channel numbers.

Click will still come in a broadsheet format, which will disappoint some of you. But we believe that keeping it broadsheet is for the best when considering the entire Sunday edition. ***  

We realize some of you will continue to miss the old TV Week and will always prefer it to Click. Many of you, we’re convinced, will come to like Click for its better variety of celebrity and TV news.

A few of the readers who called to complain about Click (almost all of you were reasonable and respectful, and I greatly appreciate that) acknowledged that they just don’t like change.

Knowing that, it’s likely there would be a groundswell of opposition if, perhaps several years down the road, The Herald Bulletin decided to scrap Click for a new product or to discontinue a weekly TV section altogether (as many newspapers have already done).

***

Our website traffic was up significantly during Super Bowl week as readers turned to us for news, sports and features stories, as well as photos and video related to the big game. A special thank-you goes to George Bremer, Heather Bremer and Andy Knight, who spearheaded our coverage.

Editor Scott Underwood’s column appears Mondays. Contact him at scott.underwood@heraldbulletin.com or 640-4845.

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