Guardian News & Media will not close The Observer

Parent company Guardian Media Group (GMG) has said it intends to explore ways to integrate its titles after speculation that the loss-making Observer would close or be re-packaged as a weekly news magazine.

The Sunday title is 200 years old. In an internal email to staff Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of GNM, warned of further job cuts and said a voluntary redundancy scheme would be reopened.

GNM, which also publishes the Guardian and its online counterpart, is conducting a strategic review and considering a range of different products and editorial structures across the Saturday and Sunday titles.

GNM made an operating loss of £36.8m in the year ending on 29 March. Parent group, GMG, also runs several regional newspapers, radio stations and Emap magazines recorded a pre-tax loss of £89.8m.

The group has launched a cost-cutting drive to shave £20m from its editorial budget and from commercial departments. So far there have been 50 voluntary redundancies from editorial and a further 82 commercial jobs have been cut.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk