Ads on the front page

I was more amused by the Freep's front page refer to a story on the front page that was roughly 8 inches below the refer.
Wait, what?
And I count 14 refers to either online or stories inside or on the cover.
That doesn't include the index either.
More fun is counting the different points of entry. But, fair warning, you'll get bored when you hit 30, I gave up at 39 and I still think missed a bunch.
Good luck.

 

Not to threadjack, but why would an awards contest disqualify front pages with ads on them? If the point of the contest is to recognize good page design, shouldn't the contest remember that its not usually the page designer who dictates if there are ads on the page? Seems like penalizing the wrong person.

As for us, we actually have a couple ad spots on A1. Advertisers like them and I've been able to use some of the revenue to buy some new equipment this year. Works for me.

 

Christ ... if your ad sales staff can sell an entire wrap-around's worth of ads ... I say more power to 'em.

Yeah, these ads suck, and it feels like we're losing a bit of our soul, but in this day and age I'd be more concerned if our paper *stopped* this practice -- because it would mean our crack ad staff couldn't even sell the front page anymore.

 

Ten years ago, I would have said ads on the front were an abomination.
Now, if it allows me to continue paying my kids' college tuition, hell, I'll appear IN the damn ads. But no nudity.
Well, maybe just a little.

 

Like I'd mentioned, standards change when survival depends on it. Sort of like how we're moving away from Hummers and F350s lately...

 

When's Hummer going to make a hybrid H3? That way, you can get around the block on a gallon...

 

I thought it would happen over my SE's dead body, but about two months ago, we went to one six-column strip at the bottom on Saturdays. Not a whole lot of complaining, and the only problem I've noticed is that it takes away a lot of wiggle room from design when you've got a lot of stuff you want to front (go figure!)

I had to fit in two standalone elements, a 2-story, 1-photo package, a story/photo and a short story, all without the bottom inch and the entire left column (inflexibly devoted to briefs/scores-see more about this on the design thread). It wasn't fun, but we survived.

 

Our college football scoreboard on Sundays that ran as a strip at the bottom had to be sacrificed for a strip ad and it moved to the first page of the inside college football coverage — the top 25 page.

It's not a death blow to the Sunday front, but like suggested elsewhere, it's a deal where our content is being chipped away...