According to the Guardian's head of editorial development, Neil McIntosh, guardian.co.uk needs to rethink its business model if it is ever to survive on its own, without the printed newspaper.

The statement, in itself, is fairly obvious: few newspaper websites could currently claim to be able to function independently of the revenues brought in by the printed newspaper.

However, it does show that Guardian executives are now openly thinking of a day when the print edition could be suppressed.

"Looking forward, there's a point at which you can say the model looks really challenging," said McIntosh. "It's not dreadful at the moment, but it's going to be a tough year this year and next.

"We need to have many millions more users to sustain the scale of operation and the way we work now. You couldn't switch the paper off and expect the website to sustain all that."

According to the Press Gazette, "Although the newspaper and the website were likely to co-exist for some time yet, McIntosh suggested that the eventual aim was a move away from print."

These words aren't far removed from our latest Future of Journalism series interview with guardian.co.uk editor Emily Bell, which will be published on Monday.

Source: Press Gazette