Interview: Roger Alton, Observer editor (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
Roger Alton is sick with nerves. "You know those feelings you get going to sit exams or to the dentist, when you think, 'Jesus, it's getting close!'?" he says in his editor's office at The Observer. "Last week I started getting a sick feeling in my stomach, nervous that people won't like it. It is a very big thing."
"It" is the new compact Observer, shrunk to Guardian Berliner format and refettled to offer what the publicity promises will be "the most modern, punchy, engaging Sunday paper" when it relaunches on 8 January. Full colour, with beefed-up sports, review and TV sections and two colour magazines each week, it is Alton's chance to take on a reformatted Independent on Sunday and Sunday Telegraph and stem a year-on-year circulation fall. "It's like being given a brilliant new sports car, and I hope people will like it," he says, flicking distractedly through some dummy front pages. "If they don't, I'll probably get fired. But that is fair enough."
The relaunch, he insists, is no journalistic revolution - "it's much the same, just an interesting size," he says. This may be intended to dampen expectations: those familiar with the dummies attest to a warmth and friendliness absent from the main Guardian section, more of a Newsweek-style magazine pacing, and a stronger use of pictures than in the daily.
In development for 18 months, under deputy editor John Mulholland, the redesign is bright and confident: the enlarged sports section incorporates the buzz of a fanzine, the review section offers more reader contributions, the G2-sized listings section aims to be the easiest of all to use. The main news pages include a new "magazine" section to help pace its 44 pages. As for Observer Woman, launched on 15 January and edited by Nicola Jeal, it will be "a monthly women's magazine for men". That is because most Sunday papers, Alton explains, are bought by men, "but you want women to tell their husbands to buy this one, not the Sunday Times just because it's got cars".
Since he took over The Observer almost eight years ago, Alton, 58, has been widely credited with reversing a decline in sales and morale that saw off four editors in five years. The launch of monthly food, sport and music magazines helped take paid circulation up towards the mid-400,000s, and five years ago Alton was named Editor of the Year at the What the Papers Say awards.
More recently, however, he has faced not just slipping sales and continued financial losses, but reports of a communications breakdown with Alan Rusbridger, his editor-in-chief, and the suggestion by his own departing columnist, Richard Ingrams, that Alton "hasn't got his heart in it any more".
So he must be feeling the pressure for this multi-million-pound relaunch to deliver results? "I don't feel under pressure beyond what's absolutely appropriate to produce the best-selling paper possible," he says. "If the numbers don't come up, then quite right if somebody wants to sack me, fine."
. . . ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE . . .
.. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
Roger Alton is sick with nerves. "You know those feelings you get going to sit exams or to the dentist, when you think, 'Jesus, it's getting close!'?" he says in his editor's office at The Observer. "Last week I started getting a sick feeling in my stomach, nervous that people won't like it. It is a very big thing."
"It" is the new compact Observer, shrunk to Guardian Berliner format and refettled to offer what the publicity promises will be "the most modern, punchy, engaging Sunday paper" when it relaunches on 8 January. Full colour, with beefed-up sports, review and TV sections and two colour magazines each week, it is Alton's chance to take on a reformatted Independent on Sunday and Sunday Telegraph and stem a year-on-year circulation fall. "It's like being given a brilliant new sports car, and I hope people will like it," he says, flicking distractedly through some dummy front pages. "If they don't, I'll probably get fired. But that is fair enough."
The relaunch, he insists, is no journalistic revolution - "it's much the same, just an interesting size," he says. This may be intended to dampen expectations: those familiar with the dummies attest to a warmth and friendliness absent from the main Guardian section, more of a Newsweek-style magazine pacing, and a stronger use of pictures than in the daily.
In development for 18 months, under deputy editor John Mulholland, the redesign is bright and confident: the enlarged sports section incorporates the buzz of a fanzine, the review section offers more reader contributions, the G2-sized listings section aims to be the easiest of all to use. The main news pages include a new "magazine" section to help pace its 44 pages. As for Observer Woman, launched on 15 January and edited by Nicola Jeal, it will be "a monthly women's magazine for men". That is because most Sunday papers, Alton explains, are bought by men, "but you want women to tell their husbands to buy this one, not the Sunday Times just because it's got cars".
Since he took over The Observer almost eight years ago, Alton, 58, has been widely credited with reversing a decline in sales and morale that saw off four editors in five years. The launch of monthly food, sport and music magazines helped take paid circulation up towards the mid-400,000s, and five years ago Alton was named Editor of the Year at the What the Papers Say awards.
More recently, however, he has faced not just slipping sales and continued financial losses, but reports of a communications breakdown with Alan Rusbridger, his editor-in-chief, and the suggestion by his own departing columnist, Richard Ingrams, that Alton "hasn't got his heart in it any more".
So he must be feeling the pressure for this multi-million-pound relaunch to deliver results? "I don't feel under pressure beyond what's absolutely appropriate to produce the best-selling paper possible," he says. "If the numbers don't come up, then quite right if somebody wants to sack me, fine."
. . . ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE . . .
.. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
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