French financial daily La Tribune is set to shift to tabloid size and cease publishing its Saturday edition, Le Figaro reports.

The newspaper, which has a circulation of 75,000, aims to make €6.5 million of savings in 2010.

A year ago, the paper relaunched with a new design and layout in a Berliner format. The Berliner format is a narrow broadsheet, used by newspapers such as The Guardian and Le Monde. At the same time, their website was redesigned and a weekend supplement was added to the print edition.

From January, the daily will reduce its size again to the tabloid format. From then on, it will contain 40 pages instead of the current 32, although they will be smaller in size.

Amidst an advertising market in turmoil, La Tribune ran at a loss of €14 million in 2009. Besides the tabloid size, other cost-cutting strategies for next year will include closing the Saturday edition and rationalising distribution costs by, for example, making cuts to the paper budget.

La Tribune has more positive plans as well. From the end of this year or the start of next, its iPhone application will be available for free download. Through this platform, it will provide live news feeds for free. Alternatively, the day's newspaper will be available for download the evening before from 9pm at a cost of €1.59.

There are also plans for online subscriptions, charging €8 a month or €96 a year to access the newspaper via the web or iPhone.

La Tribune's CEO Alain Weill doubts that the model of the daily newspaper in print can endure. "2010 is a year of transition where digital will become an alternative to paper, a new network of distribution," he told Le Figaro.

Other newspapers in the U.S., Germany and France have changed to tabloid format this year. Publications that make the switch run the risk of alienating loyal readers. Faced with such a large operating loss, though, adjustments of some kind are necessary. Whether this is the best choice for La Tribune will be clear when it makes the change.

Source: Le Figaro