• Media Life, Friday, February 23, 2007 11:30 AM

Among the complaints media buyers have about newspapers, complicated rate cards are near the top of the list. Deciphering them has long been a labor-intensive process, and buyers are still never sure if they managed the best deal. But there is hope, as papers across the country are making the switch to modular ads and simpler rate structures.

Among them: The Wall Street Journal, Orange County Register, Chicago Sun Times, Times Herald Record of Middletown, N.Y., and The Traverse City News in Michigan. "I think you are going to see more papers in the States and Canada going modular and improving their pricing," says Chris Kubas of Kubas Consultants, a Toronto-based newspaper consulting firm.

One big driver of the switch is competition; as more media outlets chase limited ad dollars, newspapers are anxious to make buying them easier. A modular format also makes it easier to reduce the width of the paper, as the WSJ did recently when it went from a 15-inch wide page to 12 inches.

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