Sometimes The Guardian is so self-effacing. It has been known forsome time that it plans to launch a new format newspaper, sizedbetween the traditional broadsheet and the tabloid, or compact. Butlast week it announced that the relaunch will happen in the autumn,with The Observer following the format change early next year. Itplaced the announcement modestly on page 19. Clearly as relaunch daydraws closer the wick will have to be turned up.
For The Guardian it is a major landmark in its 184-year history,comparable with the dropping of the word 'Manchester' from its titleor the radical redesign of 1988. Much is at stake, nearly two yearsafter The Independent surprised the quality newspaper market byhalving its size and putting up its sale by a quarter.
The Guardian took stock. It was difficult for a paper that prideditself on its radical approach to follow a competitor. But it soonbecame clear that the paper had to do something. The two compacts(The Times had followed quickly) were putting on sale; the twobroadsheets were losing.
Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, emerged from his period ofcontemplation clutching a Berliner " this is the name given to themidway format The Guardian has chosen. The area of the page is two-thirds that of the broadsheet " the tabloid is half " and Le Monde isone of the better known examples. Rusbridger persuaded his board andthe Scott Trust, owner of the Guardian Media Group, that the newformat was the way to go, and that pounds 50m should be spentdelivering it. So the stakes are high. And Rusbridger's name iswritten all over the project. Even in the forgiving atmosphere of TheGuardian, he could surely not survive a Berliner failure.
The launch announcement came now because the advertising world wasbeing briefed about the new paper, and the printing presses, in eastLondon and Manchester, were installed ahead of schedule and arenearly ready to run. They can provide colour on every page, which isincreasingly demanded by advertisers and lucrative to the publisher.
Rusbridger says this has helped in discussions with theadvertising agencies about rates to be charged in the new formatpaper. This is one of the complicated areas of downsizing. How muchcan you charge the advertisers when the page size is half or two-thirds what it was before?
Most editors involved in launches or relaunches will tell you thatthe response from the trade, focus groups and ad agencies on beingshown dummies of the new product is one of total enthusiasm.Rusbridger is no exception. He says the new paper will be upmarket ofthe present one, providing material 'outside the comfort zone of TheGuardian'.
With 18- to 25-year-olds thinking that the internet is better thannewspapers, and serious newspapers all over the Western world losingsale or spending vastly on promotion, Rusbridger believes a 'retreatto journalism fundamentals' is needed. He wants his Berliner to be'an intelligent voice that's not going to tell you what to think'.
And in a gloves-off (in a civilised Guardian manner of course)reference to his rival editor Simon Kelner of The Independent, hesays he wants his paper to be a newspaper not a 'viewspaper'.Kelner's compact paper has taken readers from The Guardian, and hehas used the 'viewspaper' line to insist his circulation gains havebeen influenced by his paper's attitude.
Rusbridger is reluctant to say how he would measure success forthe Berliner Guardian. He knows that for the first few days therewill be a distorted uplift as people try the new format. The crucialtime is after the valuable sampling period ends, and the salesteadies. Kelner would never have predicted how much the compactIndependent sale would grow. Rusbridger looks for sale to growmodestly and hopes to recapture some of the readers lost to the Indyduring the Iraq war. But he knows there are factors he cannotcontrol, such as Murdoch suddenly cutting the price of The Times oradding to the DVD avalanche.
The new Guardian will be folded in half, like a broadsheet, thesupplements within the fold rather than in the body of the paper, asis the case with the Times and Independent. It will appear thesmallest paper on the block. The sales bins used in supermarkets andmotorway service areas have tabloid slots to accommodate the papersof that size and the folded broadsheets. How will the BerlinerGuardian be displayed? Rusbridger says only that they are 'working onthe retail area'.
Compact wars are not dying down. Martin Newland, Telegraph editor,is said to be increasingly voicing his desire to go tabloid. And inSeptember a new front will open: we will have a three-format seriousend of the market. Size clearly matters to editors of upmarketnewspapers.
Peter Cole is professor of journalism at the University ofSheffield
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