Hold the front page! Guardian may turn tabloid and outsource its printing as it looks to cut more costs after axing 260 jobs in the last year

By KATHERINE RUSHTON MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY EDITOR FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 01:20 GMT, 25 January 2017 | UPDATED: 08:13 GMT, 25 January 2017

The rout of the Left in Britain continued yesterday as it was revealed that the Guardian newspaper is considering going tabloid.

It comes after a series of terrible investments that have left the company having to make huge cuts.

In the past year it has axed more than 260 jobs to save an estimated £17million a year.

The Left-leaning newspaper is considering scrapping its current unconventional Berliner format – not as large as a broadsheet, but bigger than a tabloid.

The acquisition of the £80million Berliner printing press in 2005 was the brainchild of former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, who left in 2015.

The paper is also said to be considering outsourcing its printing operation to one of its rivals, such as Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, in order to cut expenses.

The Guardian is eyeing up the radical change to its format as one of a wide range of strategies to help it break even within two years.

Last January its publisher, Guardian Media Group (GMG), vowed to slash its running costs by a fifth as its pre-tax losses widened to £69million.

‘Print is obviously a significant chunk of our revenues and costs, so we would be remiss if we didn’t look at it,’ a source said.

But ditching the Berliner format and moving its printing to News UK may be an uncomfortable move.

The Guardian repeatedly clashed with Mr Murdoch’s empire after it exposed the phone hacking scandal that prompted him to close the News of the World in 2011.

Meanwhile, the Guardian’s Berliner size has become an issue of pride – the paper pointedly took a different route from rivals such as the Times and the Independent when they switched from broadsheet to tabloid.

It would be a struggle to preserve its trademark format if it outsources its printing operation.

Rival printing presses are set up to produce newspapers as broadsheets and tabloids.

According to Reuters, they could theoretically produce the Berliner with the aid of cutting equipment, but that would be expensive.

Guardian insiders are considering whether they would save enough money from outsourcing the printing operation to justify the cost of redesigning the newspaper.

Last night sources said the tabloid plan was far from set in stone and suggested the newspaper could even revert to its original broadsheet format.

GMG declined to comment.

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