Saturday, May 5, 2007

What Has Taken Them So Long?

The Age News Paper is the oldest Newspaper in Melbourne. It is also the biggest sized paper and the least popular of the Daily’s. I regularly sell about 8 Herald Suns to every Age, except on Thursdays when it has a TV guide in it. Even then the Herald Sun still out sells it on a ratio of nearly five to one.

This lack of competitiveness has always been a talking point and many people blame this disparity of sales on the size of the paper itself. Especially when compared to the much smaller and more convenient to read on the train or Bus, Herald Sun.

Now the powers that be at the Age are talking about reducing its size, but then again they have been talking about doing that for years.

Recently I have heard rumours that they are now actually going to do that, leaving one to ask, “What has taken them so long to make this obvious decision?”

People have been complaining about its size for many, many years now. So what has taken the power’s that be at the Age so long to react?

One reason has been that their current presses can’t handle the smaller paper and would have to be replaced costing too much to make it cost effective.

Their attitude seems to be, “ And any way it is not really merited or really needed thus we will continue on as always.”

Another thought seems to have been, “This has always been its size and thus should ever be so, no matter what the many want.”

Also The Age has a reputation of being a highbrow Newspaper and they may feel reducing the size will effect how present readers might react. After all there is no point in appealing to others if you don’t succeed at that and lose even your present readers in the attempt, is there?

Well those seem to be their excuses for being reluctant to change, but what are your excuses?

Do you too know that you should change something in your life but for a variety of reasons keep putting it off?

Remember, it will probably never really get any easier to do, just like there probably will never really be a better time to do it, and if you think it will be expensive to do now, again there will probably never be a time when it will be cheaper but rather the cost will rise more and more with every delay.

At the same time you do need to take cognizance of the danger of alienating some people no matter what you do.

However, taking all that into consideration, if you feel you need to change something in your life or actions, then you should do it as soon as it is feasible and possible. Again it is an old saying but truly the old saying of, “The first step is the biggest” still stands true, but once you have made it things usually do go easier. What say you?

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