The World is the working title of a proposed British compact newspaper, to be managed by Independent columnist Stephen Glover. Glover originally hoped to launch the newspaper in 2005 or early 2006, but no date has yet been announced. Glover intends to model the newspaper on the French newspaper Le Monde, and plans to shun celebrity-oriented tabloid news. However, few are confident that The World will ever launch. Glover claims to require only £15 million to launch, less than the budget for The Independent 20 years ago. Andrew Gowers, Editor of the Financial Times, said that his newspaper had everything that one would expect to see in The World and that it was already available.
Disillusion with current quality newspapers
Glover's plan comes from his belief that broadsheet readers are increasingly disillusioned with the "dumbing-down" of their newspapers and that over 100,000 readers have stopped reading quality daily papers already. Glover points to the decline in standards at The Times under its previous editor Peter Stothard and current editor Robert Thomson. He believes that The Times is increasingly dominated by "celebrities and furry animals", news which he states would not have been part of the newspaper in the past. Robert Thomson of The Times agrees that there is more traditionally tabloid content in the paper, but claims that there is also more quality coverage of politics, current affairs and particularly business. The Times is now around three times the size it was in the 1970s. Sales of broadsheet and compact newspapers have increased slightly over the past ten years, and the Financial Times is still a highly upmarket publication. The Daily Telegraph devotes a large amount of space to serious news coverage, generally demoting celebrity-related stories to the features pages, and The Guardian provides a similar range of stories with a centre-left perspective.
Potential competition
- The Guardian switched to a mid-size (Berliner) format on 12 September 2005.
- The Independent, has already adopted the compact format and continues to stress serious news over sensationalism.
- The Times may launch a separate business section, to attract more upmarket readers.
- The Daily Telegraph is to retain its broadsheet format, unlike Glover's paper, which will launch in tabloid size. This helps it create a quality image.
- The Financial Times has a very upmarket image. It is a broadsheet and has a comprehensive politics section as well as vast business coverage. Traditionally seen as quite different from the quality general newspapers, the FT has partially closed the divide.
