The worlds oldest Sunday newspaper,The Observer,may be forced to close down as part of a cost-cutting exercise by the The Guardian Media Group (GMG),a news report said. An Observer-branded news magazine may replace the paper as part of a renewal plan after a drastic plunge in the groups finances,bringing an end to a 218-year publishing era,The Times reported. Members of the Scott Trust,the charitable foundation that owns GMG,discussed the plan on July 6. They were shown trial copies of an Observer-branded news magazine that would replace the paper and be published on a Thursday,it said. However,opposition from some trust members forced the GMG executives to put the scheme on hold while an alternative was worked out,the report said. This would keep The Observer as a Sunday newspaper but heavily slimmed down. Insiders now expect a decision at a trust meeting next month,it said. "At the moment,I would say it is 50:50 whether we are headed for the magazine,or for job losses and cost-cuts but keeping the paper," one senior source was quoted as saying by the Times. According to insiders,the management is now examining a range of other cost-cutting plans,including redundancies. A proposal for an across-the-board pay cut has been put off in favour of a plan to give all staff two weeks extra holiday without pay,the report said.
