September is a month of change. Seasons shift, tenancies swap hands, workers begrudgingly return to the City and take their seats behind desks. The relentless grind of everyday life slowly but surely returns to the metropolis’ streets.
Just as the trees begin to shed their leaves, a certain weekly subscription has also decided to shed some summer foliage, and return as a fortnightly affair.
Earlier this summer, as we all enjoyed the British sun, The Times Literary Supplement (TLS), a weekly analysis and review of books, chose to announce a coppicing from being a weekly magazine. Subscribers received an email, the contents of which were (mostly) forgotten in the rush of summer, notifying them of the shift of the publication from being weekly to fortnightly, and tried to make it sound more seductive by imbuing positivity about the upgrade in paper quality this change would welcome.
Perhaps a rather clever marketing tactic from the TLS team, to announce the change during the summer, but the shift in publication frequency suggests a more profound move within our reading habits and the archaic history of the weekly newspaper.
‘Weeklies’ first appeared in the 17th Century, but only became popular in the 19th century, after the stamp tax was abolished, and newspapers became an affordable commodity, and since then they soared in popularity until the 1990s, and the invention of the internet made online publishing ‘in Vogue’.
Now, it is no secret that life is moving online. Some of the biggest newspapers, such as The Financial Times, saw a 4.4% reduction in their printing cycle this year, and this is on the smaller side of the stats. Other publications, such as the Sunday People owned by Reach PLC, have felt a far more harsh cut to demand for print. People now-a-days prefer the convenience of reading online, and articles which are published in print often appear on websites days before anyway, so it is increasingly feeling as though the slow, meditative process of the printing press is outdated by the 24/7 news cycle.
The ‘death of the weekly’ such as the TLS, is certainly still a significant shift in the media landscape, but arguably not in the negative ways one might think.
Of course, there are the luddites out there who will complain about the reduction, who will declare the death of culture and argue a heinous sin has been committed by Murdoch’s media power house, and when I read the TLS email about their printing reduction, I too could not help but feel a small slice of sadness.
Initially, it highlighted some kind of surrender to the online world, this acceptance that a small part of our life might become less physical.
Perhaps other treasured weeklies might follow suit and leave us with nothing but a digital footprint. But under the surface, is the reduction of the weekly such a bad thing, or is it a necessary evolution?
As a society, we are inundated with content. From the moment we wake up, to the seconds we call sleep. Phones, notifications, emails, screens. There is content around every corner. As a result, society has become burnt out, and there is this collective feeling that there is never enough time to live the perfect life sold to us online.
Subscriptions pile up in our inboxes, and end up stacked in a pile by the door as burn out leads to a reversion to Netflix instead of reading. Anything. Reading rates amongst adults have, reportedly, reduced by 8% since 2015.
So, part of me wonders if reducing the number of publications in a world which only ever demands more from us, is a quiet rebellion against hustle culture, and an exploration into how we can slow ourselves down, and take time to read things rather than allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by them.
The change may give writers more opportunity to write pieces, ultimately leading to a higher quality of written word, and leaving more space between sending these physical copies out allows time for people to actually read them before the next one flies through the inbox.
Only a couple of weeks ago it was reported in Forbes that Gen Z are ditching hustle culture, instead tuning into a slower, more balanced way of life. Perhaps a change in how we consume media is another silent indicator towards a gentle shift in societal behaviour more widely.
In a world filled with negative news, and dwindling attention spans (the average is now eight seconds compared to the 12 seconds it was a decade ago) giving the reader more time to consume something, to read something, might just be the kind of balm we news to start regaining our MIA attention spans, and adopt a life slightly less chronically online.
This type of publishing schedule would not work for daily newspapers, clearly, but for a feature focused, long-form journalism publication I think less is more.
The move signals a societal shift towards people craving quality rather quantity in the race for modern attention.
Words by Iona Lowe
Iona is a freelance writer based in London
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