LONDON, Sept 15: In a departure from its 184-year history, The Guardian, one of UK’s most respected newspaper, was launched in the tabloid format on Monday. The new format, described by its editor as “Berliner mid-size format” offers its readers convenience of a tabloid with the sensibility of a broadsheet newspaper.

According to Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, the main change - the format - is in response to unambiguous research which shows that readers increasingly find broadsheet newspapers difficult to handle in many everyday situations, including commuting to work.

The Guardian is not the first UK broadsheet newspaper to be published in the tabloid.

The Independent was the first broadsheet which changed its size to overcome the problem of falling circulation. It first appeared in tabloid size format on Sept 30, 2003. The change of size has reportedly helped the newspaper and boosted its circulation by 40,000 copies (from 220,000 to 260,000). The Independent on Sunday is also planning to change its size this autumn.

The success of the Independent prompted Rupert Murdoch to bring out its only UK broadsheet the Times in a smaller format on November 26, 2003. Coupled with an expensive publicity campaign, the change of size pushed the Circulation up quite substantially.

In the year 2004 Saturday Scotsman went tabloid to befit from the success of the Independent and the Times.

According to the industry sources, the motive behind the Guardian move is also to arrest the declining circulation. The paper with a left-to-centre editorial policy was selling about 390,000 copies per day a while ago. But the change of size by two rival national dailies adversely affected its sale and currently it has a daily circulation of 370,000 copies.

On the first day of its new format, the newspaper appeared in four sections - main news and comment, sports, stapled full colour G2 magazine and Media (one of its five specialist sections, others being education, society, technology and film & music).