philippine daily inquirer, still no.1 - why you love to hate it

don't you just love to hate the philippine daily inquirer?



it's a national daily newspaper that's good just for a total read of 3 articles at the most! and that usually takes less than 8 minutes to read. it doesn't help that PDI's approach to journalism is actually that of a tabloid that's masquerading as a national newspaper. in my view, the PDI is actually a newspaper version of boy abunda's tv show, The Buzz, with the only difference being topics are on politics and national news and issues and not show business. in PDI, national issues and politics are delivered in a chismis style journalism.

there are many to be said about content and its kind of journalism, but that is straying away from the nature of this blog.

the other part you love to hate in PDI is the over-population of ads!

in today's issue, PDI has, believe it or not a total of 24 sections! that means 24 separate pull outs. there is the main headline section, 22 pages, 1 magazine and 1 comics section and 21 separate pull outs or sections, each pull out consisting of just 4 pages.

and that is one of the biggest things you love to hate about the PDI - the 21 separate pull outs or sections. they use letters to name the sections, and in today's issue, it runs from Section A to Section Q, that's only 17, but some of the sections have sub-numbers, like Section A, then Section A1. perhaps to cut on the number of letter sections? it will be totally embarrassing if they hit Section Z, don't you think? they also cheated, 2 sections they did not put letters on, just numbers. again, it's to save themselves from the embarrassment of hitting Section Z.

it's not just the numerous sections, it's the fact that in each 4 page section, there is only a tiny article or editorial and the rest of the pages are print ads. i would say the editorial in those sections account for a tiny portion while the ads occupy 70% to 85% of the total 4 pages.

ah, now you get it. those sections are actually just ads, not articles or sections with legitimate topics. you could have been impressed, PDI on a sunday has 21 sections, and therefore 21 topics! but no, what PDI is doing with the sections is really just printing classified ads but tried to give it some glamor by calling them "sections", and not classified ads which they truly are.

as a reader and consumer of PDI, that really sucks and is utterly inconvenient. the hardship that a reader like me goes through, like for example looking for the movie section, it means you have to go through 21 freagin sections before you find it! they don't even try to give each section a unique layout or design. not even a decent header to differentiate one from the other.

that makes me wonder - are advertisers in PDI getting their money's worth? let's be honest here - how many readers actually go through each of those 24 sections page by page? after awhile, you get to understand what PDI is doing - when you see a section, and knowing 85% of what's inside is just an ad, will the reader still turn the page and look at the ads? you know there's hardly an article inside, why bother opening the page?

for advertisers, the promise of readership in PDI is actually just a myth, you can get handsome readership numbers in your post buy media analysis, but did actual readers read the ad? i don't really think so.

for advertisers, in the layout that they have now, PDI is a WAWAM!

======================

Inquirer still No. 1 by bigger margin, says Nielsen survey
By Kate
V. Pedroso

Philippine Daily InquirerFirst

Posted 03:01:00 06/15/2008


THE PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER continues to generate the largest readership among Filipino broadsheet readers nationwide, according to the latest survey conducted by Nielsen Media Research.

The Inquirer captured 53 percent of broadsheet readership in the country’s key cities, according to the Nielsen Media Index 2008 Q1. The Manila Bulletin and Philippine Star both got 44 percent.

This translates to an estimated 1.258 million readers for the Inquirer, 1.051 million for the Star and 1.048 million for Bulletin nationwide.