I was a bit slow reading last Saturday’s paper and totally missed this one: The Gazette is killing its Take 5 section.

It makes sense. Take 5 never really had a purpose. It was just a section where they threw together DVD reviews, electronics, gaming, the puzzles page and comics. It wasn’t really clear what tied them together.

So after realizing that few people read the section (they had a survey about it earlier this year) and that even fewer people care, they’re gutting it and redistributing its contents:

DVD reviews join the Friday Preview section as a single page, though it keeps the funky Take 5-style layout, which makes it look out of place.

Mark Saltzman‘s electronics advertorials column moves to Thursdays in Arts & Life, where it will apparently be once every two weeks, rotated with other articles like those of photography columnist Martin Coles.

Tyler Todd’s In the Game column is being replaced by a blog of the same name. This makes sense considering the way Todd has been writing his columns. And considering they were always published in a tiny font, maybe this means people will be able to read it. (It also means Todd can do fun stuff like include pictures with his rants.)

Video game reviews, as far as I can tell, will no longer appear in The Gazette. That’s kind of a step backwards, but it’s another step in the continuing alienation between newspapers and younger generations, which will lead to newspapers’ downfall once the baby boombers die off.

The puzzles and comic pages will move back to Weekend Life, where they were before Take 5 was launched.

What do you think?