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Management happens
Collective inertia – if you don’t join them, you can
beat them!
The inclination to conform to the behavior of others can
sometimes lead to some mighty strange and plain irrational
situations in the world of business. For example, have you ever
wondered why newspapers are so ridiculously big? Perhaps when
you were trying to read one in your garden on a sunny yet windy
afternoon, forcing you to peel the pages off your face every three
seconds? Or while reading one on the train, smashing your elbow
in a nodding neighbour’s face when turning the page? I did. Not
smashing my elbow in anyone’s face, but wondering why these
pages had to be so bloody large. I simply assumed that it was
much cheaper to print on large pages than small ones. Turns out
I was wrong.
To my surprise, I found out that printing on large pages is
actually more expensive than on smaller ones! Why did they
do it then; are these Times, Guardian and Daily Telegraph people
closet sadists, nding secret joy in making us struggle daily with
inky pages? Here’s what happened. In 1712 British newspapers
came to be taxed on the number of pages published. Editors
then decided to print the news on enormous pages, and fewer
of them, creating the broadsheet format. The original tax disap-
peared in 1855 but, despite being considerably more expensive,
the format persisted.
As you may remember (if you’re from London), a couple of
years ago, after the free newspaper Metro entered the industry,
The Independent was the rst to abandon the broadsheet and “go
tabloid”. Their sales gures surged. Soon The Times followed, and
later also The Guardian, all to their benet. But why did it take so
long? Had no-one ever conceived the idea of printing newspapers
on smaller (and cheaper!) pages?
Sure they had. Many times over the years someone would bring
it up: “Shouldn’t we print on smaller pages?” But they would
always dismiss the idea: “No-one is doing it” and, mostly, “The
customer would not want it” but we did!
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