Rolling Stone to shrink to standard size

“All you’re getting from that large size is nostalgia.”

With that, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner (above) confirmed in an interview with the New York Times that the rumoured downsizing of the iconic music magazine will indeed take place effective with the October 30 issue. Readers had been polled about the idea, but it is clear that Wenner's mind's made up.

The magazine will shrink from its current 10 x 12 inch size (itself quite a bit smaller than the tabloid size in which it started out 41 years ago) to the size favoured by the vast majority of consumer magazines roughly 8 x 11 inches. It will also be perfect-bound rather than saddle-stitched and undergo a visual redesign on somewhat glossier paper.

Gary Armstrong, chief marketing officer for Wenner Media, pointed to Vanity Fair, which has lower overall circulation than Rolling Stone, but nearly three times the single-copy sales. With a standard format, he said, it should be possible to raise newsstand sales significantly.

“The consumer we want to reach watches ‘Lost’ on a big TV screen, on a computer screen and on an iPhone,” he said. “They’re agnostic on format.”

Wenner acknowledges that the magazine may be losing something that made it distinctive:

“I myself was kind of torn about it."

[Photo by Richard Perry, New York Times]

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