UK's Guardian daily goes tabloid to cut costs

Britain's Guardian newspaper has adopted a new tabloid format and a re-designed masthead with simple black lettering from Monday as part of a drive to cut costs.

The left-leaning newspaper previously had a blue and white masthead and in 2005 had adopted a Berliner format, midway between a broadsheet and a tabloid.

"Our move to tabloid format is a big step towards making The Guardian financial sustainable," the paper's editor-in-chief Katharine Viner said in a piece for the first new edition.

She called it "bold, striking and beautiful".

The Guardian is selling or scrapping its three presses worth £80 million (90 million euros, $110 million) to cut costs and printing will be outsourced to tabloid-format presses run by Trinity Mirror media group.

The website, which attracts 150 million monthly unique browsers worldwide, has also undergone a redesign.

The company is aiming to break even by April 2019, mainly through cutting costs and boosting digital ad revenue to make up for a sharp decline in print ad revenue.

© 2018 AFP