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Newspaper sizes in August 2005. Le Monde is in the Berliner format. The Guardian is in the British broadsheet format (or was, until September 2005), whereas the Daily Mail is a tabloid, and The Times a "compact". Berliner Zeitung and Neues Deutschland are of sizes between broadsheet and Berliner. A piece of white A4 paper is placed in front for scale.

Broadsheet is the largest of the various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages (typically 22 inches or more).

Other newspaper formats include:

Description

Many broadsheets measure roughly 29½ by 23½ inches (74.9 cm × 59.7 cm) per full broadsheet spread, twice the size of a standard tabloid. Australian and New Zealand broadsheets always have a paper size of A1 per spread (84.1cm by 59.4cm).

In the United States the traditional dimensions for the front page half of a broadsheet are 15 inches wide by 22¾ inches long. However in efforts to save newsprint costs many U.S. newspapers (including The Wall Street Journal) are downsizing to 12 inches wide by 22¾ inches long for a folded page.

The two versions of the broadsheet are:

Full broadsheet - The full broadsheet typically is folded vertically in half so that it forms four pages (the front page front and back and the back page front and back). The four pages are called a spread. Inside broadsheets are nested accordingly.
Half broadsheet - The half broadsheet is usually an inside page that is not folded vertically and just includes a front and back.

In uncommon instances an entire newspaper can be a two-page half broadsheet or four-page full broadsheet. Totally self-contained advertising circulars inserted in a newspaper in the same format are referred to as broadsheets.

Broadsheets typically are also folded horizontally in half to accommodate newstand display space. The horizontal fold however does not affect the page numbers and the content remains vertical. The most important newspaper stories are placed "above the (horizontal) fold." This contrasts with tabloids which typically do not have a horizontal fold (although tabloids usually have the four page to a sheet spread format).

Historically, broadsheets were developed when in 1712 a tax was placed on British newspapers based on the number of their pages.

The broadsheet has since emerged as the most popular format for the dissemination of printed news. The world's most widely circulated English language daily broadsheet is The Times of India, a leading English language daily newspaper from India, followed closely by The New York Times from the United States, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Printing considerations

Modern printing facilities most efficiently print broadsheet sections in multiples of eight pages (with four front pages and four back pages). The broadsheet is then cut in half during the process. Thus the newsprint rolls used are defined by the width necessary to print four front pages. The width of a newsprint roll is called its web. Thus the new 12 inch wide frontpage broadsheet newspapers in the United States use a 48-inch web newsprint roll.

With profit margins narrowing for newspapers in the wake of competition from broadcast, cable television, and the internet, newspapers are looking to standardize the size of the newsprint roll. The Wall Street Journal with its 15-inch wide frontpage was printed on 60-inch web newsprint. Early adopters in the downsizing of broadsheets initially used a 50-inch web (12½ inch front pages). However the 48-inch web is now rapidly becoming the definitive standard in the U.S. The New York Times held out on the downsizing until July 2006, saying it would stick to its 54-inch web (13½ inch front page). However, the paper has now announced it will adopt the narrower format starting in April 2008.

The smaller newspapers also have the advantage of being easier to handle particularly among commuters.

Connotations

Broadsheet newspapers are commonly perceived to be more intellectual in content than their tabloid counterparts, using their greater size to examine stories in more depth, while less often carrying sensationalist and celebrity material. This distinction is most obvious on the front page: whereas tabloids tend to have a single story dominated by a headline, broadsheets allow two or more stories to be displayed, the most important at the top of the page - "above the fold."

However, while this distinction is widely used it is at best a generalization, and the term "tabloid" technically refers only to the paper's size. Some tabloid papers (particularly the Daily Mail and Daily Express) often use phrases such as "broadsheet quality in a tabloid format" to distinguish themselves from the "tabloid" reputation. In addition, broadsheets often publish supplements, such as sports reviews and less news-oriented content (e.g. the Guardian's "G2" (formerly) or the Times's "Times 2"), in tabloid format.

UK broadsheets

In the UK, one major daily broadsheet is distributed nationwide, and three on a Sunday; of the four major broadsheet quality papers, two are generally on the right wing politically, and two more left wing:

The Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph; broadly right-wing
The Sunday Times (The Times is now a tabloid / compact); both are broadly centre-right
The Guardian and The Observer (its Sunday paper) are both now printed in Berliner format; broadly centre-left leaning
The Independent on Sunday (The Independent is now a compact); broadly liberal

Other prominent UK broadsheets include The Herald and The Scotsman, which are not true national newspapers, as they are mostly distributed in Scotland. The Financial Times is also printed and sold in other countries; as the British equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, it lends its most detailed attention to financial news.

The average circulation of the Times is around 656,000 and the Telegraph sells 908,000 copies daily, while the circulations of the Guardian and Independent are more approximately 380,000 and 240,000. The Financial Times sells over 440,000 copies, the Scotsman maybe 70,000 (all figures July 2006).

Switch to smaller sizes

In 2003 The Independent started concurrent production of both broadsheet and tabloid ("compact") editions, carrying exactly the same content. The Times did likewise, but with less apparent success, with readers vocally opposing the change. The daily Independent ceased to be available in broadsheet format in May 2004, and The Times followed suit from November 2004; The Scotsman is also now published only in tabloid format. The Guardian switched to the "Berliner" or "midi" format found in some other European countries (slightly larger than a traditional tabloid) on 12 September, 2005. The Courier-Mail, the only daily newspaper in Brisbane, Australia, also changed from broadsheet to tabloid format on March 13, 2006. The only Malaysian broadsheet, New Straits Times, also changed to tabloid in March 2005

The main motivation cited for this shift is that commuters prefer papers which they can hold easily on public transport, and it is presumably hoped that other readers will also find the smaller formats more convenient. It remains to be seen how this shake-up will affect the usage of the term "broadsheet". Notably, the Daily Telegraph increased its lead in circulation over the The Times when the latter switched to compact size - this is attributed to the backlash of traditional broadsheet readers.