[mmartins]

Rupe clearly wants to merge his Sun and Times operations into a single paper

Keep an eye on page 3!

[dagnabbit]

No biggie. Our New York Times went "News of the World" Elvis/Space-Alien years ago.

[peyton randolph]

Will the Times have a Page 3 section like The Sun?

[Anti-Bubba182]

Tabloid format says nothing one way or the other about quality. It is more convenient. I wish that was the predominant format.

[dsc]

They'll try anything to increase sales, short of honesty.

[Shortwave]

It'll make it easier to whipe my butt with.

[SamAdams76]

The tabloid format is always synonomous with gossipy, celebrity-obsessed, UFO-type garbage. When the Boston Herald (Boston's only conservative newspaper) went tabloid some 25 years ago, it has slowly evolved into a paper that sensationalizes news on Page One and is chock-full of celebrity photos and gossip on the inside. I can hardly look at the thing anymore. If not for Howie Carr, the Op-Ed page and the Sports section, I would have cancelled my subscription to this rag long ago.

Why can't there be a tabloid paper that prints serious news?

Anyway, the day is soon coming where there will be no newspapers. We will all carry iPod-sized devices with us that will be flashed wirelessly with the latest news which we can view, listen to or read through special eyeglasses that will have the pages right in front of us - like those "heads-up" displays that fighter pilots currently use.

[mewzilla]

I'll take the tab New York Post over the broadsheet NYT any day, for style and substance. Tabloid is not necessarily a dirty word, even though the meaning has changed :)

[RayChuang88]

Actually, many of the world's newspapers are going to the tabloid format not only because it's easier to hold when you're riding any means of public transportation, but also it saves on paper usage in many cases. Given the increasing cost of fossil fuels you will see faster switching by newspapers to this format.

[SquirrelKing]

Look for LA Times & others here to start including more drunken celeb and boobie pics.

[dr_who_2]

I guess it reflects the standing of the party that they championed.

[marshmallow]

The Times is the second British newspaper to move to a smaller, more commuter-friendly format in a bid to reverse slumping sales

I doubt that the format has anything to do with slumping sales. It's more likely due to the inroads of the internet and other electronic media combined with the ever diminishing interest of the British public in serious news, saturated as they are with pictures of bare-breasted women and never ending reports of the sexual peccadilloes of the rich and famous.