UK: Telegraph has no tabloid plans, exec says

Posted by Maddie Hanna on June 15, 2006 at 1:56 PM

Reports that the Telegraph will soon be launching a tabloid to accompany its broadsheet edition are false, Telegraph Media Group chief executive Murdoch McLennan said.

A story in the UK’s Observer started a rumor that the Telegraph’s move to Victoria also meant a move to add a tabloid.

One Telegraph executive, unnamed by the Guardian: “Are we going to launch a Telegraph tabloid — absolutely not, the guy was from planet Zog.”

Publishing a tabloid alongside a broadsheet proved disastrous for The Independent and The Times of London, according to the Guardian. But testing out a tabloid could benefit the Telegraph if it won over Daily Mail and Metro readers. The tabloid-broadsheet strategy has been shown to boost circulation for other European papers — such as Germany’s Die Welt — and in a UK market highly saturated with free papers, innovation will be necessary to stay competitive.

Source: The Guardian