It has been announced within the last few weeks that the Observer Newspaper is set to close its magazines. The weekly broadsheet, first published in 1791, was the worlds first Sunday newspaper and it has a truly illustrious past. However, although it was named British Newspaper of year as recently as 2007, falling ABC figures has led to speculation about the paper shutting down.
In August this year it was widely reported that the paper would close but this hasn't happened and instead a signficant editorial change has been made to try and bring revenue and costs closer together. The popular monthly magazines will all cease to exist, the format will be reduced to four main sections (news, sport, review and The Magazine), and several staff will be reassigned across The Guardian network.
However, is this just delaying the inevitable? The costs involved in producing a Sunday broadsheet are huge and large circulation figures are required to generate the required sales and advertising revenue to make a paper a viable business - especially in todays economic climate. The format changes to the Observer will save costs but they are unlikely to add to the papers comparatively (versus papers like the Daily Mail and Sunday Times) small circulation figures. As such the paper is likely to continue to lose money so it can surely only be a matter of time before it no longer makes business sense to publish it.
It will be a sad day when The Observer loses its battle and it seems that The Independent may unfortunately follow suit, but it seems that big loses to the media industry such as these are what is needed as to fast track the radical changes required.
Online news and content is the way forward, the newspaper industry just needs to figure out how to evolve.
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