The Independent on Sunday has ruled out following its daily stablemate into the tabloid arena for the time being, but has unveiled some major changes to its package of supplements.
From this week the Business section is shrinking to tabloid size, The Sunday Review is expanding and high-brow London supplement Talk of the Town has been swallowed into a 64-page magazine distributed throughout the country called ABC (arts, books and culture).
On the subject of going compact, editor Tristan Davies said: “It would be ridiculous to say we’ve not been looking closely at it. We’ve done a lot of work on it but we are in no hurry and there’s no plan to do so at the moment.”
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He added: “ABC is something I’ve been very keen to do for some time because we have very good arts and books coverage. We’ve been looking for some time for a proper platform for it and these things take a lot of money.
“It takes an investment by the owner, which we’ve got, and you have to convince people that what you’ve got is good and it’s the right time to do it.
“I’ve been at the paper for three years. I changed the paper very significantly when I took over. Three years is quite a long time to be doing the same thing so I was itching to do something new and I’m lucky that I’ve been able to do more than one thing.”
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ABC will also include new fiction, expanded TV coverage and weekly columns on culture by design expert Stephen Bayley and cinema by film historian David Thomson.
Although Business is changing to tabloid format it will include more content with extra space for news features, analysis, personal finance and an expanded media section with a new media column and diary.
The Sunday Review, The Independent on Sunday’s colour supplement, is to include more features on homes, interiors, food, drink and gardening as well as regular new columns on sex, relationships, street fashion, entertaining and motoring.
James Hanning joins the paper from the Evening Standard as executive editor in charge of comment while head of journalism at Sheffield University, Peter Cole, is the paper’s new media commentator.
By Dominic Ponsford
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