Britain’s Guardian newspaper could go tabloid, and switch to Murdoch’s presses

The Guardian newspaper is considering becoming a tabloid and outsourcing printing to a rival such as Rupert Murdoch’s News UK as one of a series of options to cut costs, sources said.

Publisher Guardian Media Group (GMG) said last year it needed to make savings of 20 per cent to stem underlying losses that widened to £62.6 million (US$78 million) for the year to April 3. It said it was aiming to break even in three years.

“The company is working on a whole range of efficiency projects and the print programme fits into that,” one source close to the company said on Monday.

GMG prints both The Guardian and its Sunday stablemate The Observer on special presses bought more than 11 years ago when it switched from a broadsheet to the mid-sized Berliner format.

Editorially, The Guardian has clashed with Murdoch’s British newspapers, notably in bringing to light the phone-hacking scandal that resulted in the closure of his News of the World tabloid in 2011

On a business level, however, the two groups are collaborating, along with Trinity Mirror and Telegraph Media Group, on Project Rio, a plan to pool newspaper advertising sales.

Daily Mail publisher DMGT pulled out of the initiative this month, according to reports.