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Dow Jones promises more from less for fewer with Journal revamp

How does one boost a flat Asian readership? Having worked its magic on the once great Far Eastern Economic Review, Dow Jones now plans to go tabloid with its regional flagship - the Asian Wall Street Journal.

Aptly for a newspaper for which brevity is a dirty word, its press release ran to more than a 1,000 words - and even then it was far from clear what is going on. Relegating the region you cover to an afterthought perhaps offers some kind of clue (from October 17, the newspaper will be re-named the Wall Street Journal Asia).

The new strategy aims to focus on 'C-suite executives'. We too were puzzled by that one but a call to Dow Jones yielded crisp insight into the latest in management jargon ('C' pretty much means anything with a 'chief' in it: chief executive; chief financial officer; chief washroom attendant). At present, the Journal claims a circulation of 80,000 copies daily, of which 72 per cent goes to senior management - or, viewed another way, about 28 per cent of its readership is about to be told to take a hike.

The company reckons it will achieve ongoing annual savings of US$17 million by crunching down the Asian and European operations to a tabloid formula.

It's just as well the slimmed down tabloid still promises readers more of everything.