The Financial Times may be the next broadsheet to downsize. Press
Gazette has learnt that senior management at the paper has been
considering various options for the FT if it chooses to change format.
The
main contender is thought to be a slimline FT. It would be neither
tabloid nor Berliner, but the same format as USA Today, which is
printed in London, Europe, Asia and the USA, so would suit the FT’s
need to print internationally.
A spokeswoman for the FT said that
there were “no plans on the drawing board” to change format. She added
that it had invested in a new online and print production system that
would “enable us to do more radical things in terms of design when it
comes into play next year”.
She added: “You’ve got to remember,
the FT is an international paper with 24 print sites around the world,
and at the moment the broadsheet works for us.
The paper is,
however, slightly smaller in Europe, as it is in the US. The new
production system will allow us to tweak it down here and tweak it up
there both in the UK and overseas.”
With just a bit of “tweaking” a USA Today-style FT could be reality in the not-too-distant future say sources.
The
Daily Telegraph is understood to have looked at a USA Today format
several years ago. A Telegraph team visited the USA Today-size National
Post in Canada, but the switch was ruled out on the grounds that it was
too expensive.
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