It was with mixed emotions that I pulled the new Rolling Stone magazine from my mailbox on Thursday. On one hand, it pleased me to see Barack Obama's smiling face on the cover. On the other, it saddened me to see the mag, the one I have read more often than any other during my lifetime, had shrunk. The larger format had stood for four decades. I have a hard time throwing away periodicals and have boxes of the large format RS's dating back to last decade tucked away in my closet. On slow nights, I still peruse them.
"The adoption of a standard format could boost single-copy sales and reduce production costs for advertising inserts such as scent strips and tear-out postcards," reports the AP (which also offers comparative pics of the old and new formats). "The magazine says any cost savings, though, will be offset by the inclusion of more pages and the shift to thicker, glossier paper."
Rolling Stone boss man and founder devoted a page to explaining the move.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2008.
