Guardian Launches Compact On September 12
The much anticipated downsized Guardian will be hitting newsstands on Monday 12 September, offering readers the only full-colour national newspaper.
The mid-sized format will include a smaller, magazine sized G2 features section as well as a new daily colour sports section. A new technology section will be introduced on Thursdays to replace the existing Life science supplement, while the G3 specialist supplements will be expanded to fit the new style.
The Saturday Guardian has also undergone a revamp and will be launching in the new format in September 19. The newspaper will have nine sections, with separate Money and Work replacing the current Jobs and Money section. A new eight-paged supplement called Family will also be included in the paper.
The move has been widely anticipated, with the Guardian making no secret of its intention to downsize. Mock-ups of the new-look newspaper were seen by senior media buyers as early as March last year (see Guardian Considers Midsize Edition To Boost Sales).
The announcement also confirmed the re-launch of the Guardian’s Sunday sister title, the Observer, which will adopt the same mid-size format early next year to become the first Sunday paper to reduce its size.
Guardian Media Group spent £80 million on changing the format size of the publication to compact and invested in three new colour presses, committing a further £24 million to new all-colour presses for GMG’s northern local titles.
However, in the lead up to the format change the Group saw it’s profits impacted on by the projects with pretax profits for the Group almost halving, dropping to £22.9 million from £43.8 million this time last year (see GMG’s Profits Fall In Lead Up To Guardian Downsizing).
Group turnover for GMG, however, increased by 18% to £751.9 million for the period and total operating profit was shown to be up to £122.4 million from £84.5 million.
The latest national newspapers ABC figures show the Guardian to have dropped by 3.4% year on year, with its circulation dipping to 358,345, while the Observer also lost circulation, declining by 1% (see National Newspapers Continue To Struggle).
The Guardian: 020 7478 5240 www.guardian.co.uk