DJ TO DOWNSIZE EUROPEAN, ASIAN PAPERS.

Jumping on the compact-newspaper bandwagon, Dow Jones said last week that it would downsize the European and Asian editions of the Wall Street Journal.

Broadsheet papers throughout Europe and the United Kingdom have been switching to one of a variety of smaller sizes. U.S. publishers have so far been reluctant to make any changes, though Gannett Co. Inc. said in March that it would shift its paper in Lafayette, Ind., to the smaller format known as the "Berliner."

Dow Jones executives cited projections that the new format would save the company about $17 million a year, starting in 2006. The company expects the changeover -- which includes some personnel restructuring -- to cost between $6 and $8 million. With the Oct. 17 start of the new format, it said that it expected to save about $5 million in 2005.

The company said that there are no current discussions to change the format of the U.S. editions of the Journal.

The format change comes after a series of bad results (see above), which have been reflected in the company's stock price, which hit a 52-week low two weeks ago at $31.94, a drop of 24 percent from its high.

Small is beautiful and the DJ's pictures of the redesign of the overseas editions make them look a lot flashier than they have been, and flashier by an order of magnitude than its U.S. counterpart. But the announcement press release kept referring that a combination of the redesigned editions and the paper's web site would "better serve the needs of highly mobile international business leaders." With all those cost savings, it sounds to me like the overseas editions are going to be shadows of their former selves.