- Editor-in-chief confirms switch to save money as the paper battles to break even
- Decision comes after it struck a printing deal with Trinity Mirror earlier this year
Guardian Editor-in-chief Katharine Viner confirmed the newspaper will switch to tabloid format from January
The Guardian is to scrap its much-vaunted ‘Berliner’ format in the new year and become a tabloid.
Editor-in-chief Katharine Viner confirmed she was making the switch to save money as the newspaper battles to break even by early 2019.
‘We have got the same amount of journalism. The cost-savings are all in production and printing processes rather than the journalism,’ she told the BBC. The change is a dramatic shift for the left-of-centre Guardian, which had spent £80million on Berliner presses and print works.
It made a great fanfare of the format when it switched from a larger, broadsheet format 12 years ago. At the time, then-editor Alan Rusbridger claimed that the mid-sized Berliner was ‘much more convenient than a tabloid’ and represented a ‘quantum leap forward technologically’.
He added that there were ‘lots of downsides for turning tabloid’ and that opting for the Berliner format felt ‘much bolder’.
However, The Guardian has struggled to stem its losses, which stood at £45million last year, leading to hundreds of job losses.
It has traditionally printed its newspaper itself, but earlier this year struck a deal to outsource the operation to Trinity Mirror – publisher of fellow tabloids the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People – from January.