Guardian ups Saturday cover price

The Guardian has raised the cover price of its Saturday edition by 10p to £1.70.

The Guardian‘s last price rise came in September 2008, when it increased to £1.60 (see Guardian And Telegraph To Raise Cover Prices).

In the rest of the Quality market, the Saturday Times costs £1.50, while the Saturday Daily Telegraph and Saturday Independent cost £1.60.

In a piece in Saturday’s paper, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger explained the reasons behind the move.

“Serious, internationally based news operations are expensive and increasingly rare, which is why in the face of a very difficult advertising market and rising newsprint costs we have to ask a little extra to continue delivering the quality of news, analysis, features and commentary that you’ll find in today’s eight-section paper,” he said.

“The Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust, which exists purely to support journalism in the spirit and tradition of the paper founded in 1821. Today that journalism reaches an international audience of more than 26 million people through our award-winning website and print titles.”

Although ABC figures do not break down as far as individual days, we can see that the paper’s overall circulation has fallen markedly over the past ten years.

Readership figures for the Saturday edition are available, however, and here a decline is less apparent.