WSJ to add leisure section on Saturday

Nat Ives of Advertising Age writes that The Wall Street Journal plans to add an additional weekly section of leisure and lifestyle content to the nearly 5-year-old Saturday edition. The new section, for which former Domino magazine editor in chief Deborah Needleman is serving as a consultant, is slated to appear this fall.

Ives writes, “The section, which will comprise some 15 to 17 pages of editorial and advertising, follows other expansions by The Journal including the Greater New York section introduced in April, the six-times-a-year WSJ magazine introduced in September 2008 and the Saturday paper itself, which was introduced in September 2005. And it furthers the particular push by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch to broaden the paper’s contents well beyond financial and business news, introducing elements such as sports coverage and changing the mix of front-page stories.

“The changes are meant to attract new readers and advertisers, elevating The Journal out of the territory of a second read for business people and making it more tempting for consumer advertisers. WSJ magazine has, for example, attracted more than 75 new advertisers to The Journal, according to the paper.

“‘It’s a continuation of some of the changes we’ve made to the weekday paper in the sense that we’ve been striving to make sure it’s a complete read,’ said Kelly Leach, general manager at The Journal.”

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