In an interview published today in the FT Creative Business, editor Alan Rushbridger said that what The Guardian had previously said was that it would not go tabloid.
"We haven't actually said we will stay broadsheet. There is something we won't talk about at the moment because it is not sensible. All we have said is that we won't go tabloid. We may not remain exactly the same size," he told FT Creative Business.
In January The Guardian reacted angrily to industry speculation and reports that it had a tabloid newspaper, or a "Guardian Lite", ready to roll.
In the interview this morning Rushbridger points to a possibility of a halfway house -- a paper that retains some of the sensibilities of a broadsheet without fully sacrificing news values for a tabloid format.
One possibility is the Berliner format, which is used in France by Le Monde and the Financial Times-owned Les Echos. The Berliner format is wider and taller than a tabloid.
Whatever The Guardian does, it might want to do something sooner rather than later. The latest ABCs released on Friday revealed that The Independent is snatching circulation from its closest rival as its tabloid edition continues to prosper.
The Independent posted a 3% rise to 256,378 for February, up 7.6% year on year, while The Guardian dropped 3.5% to 369,726, down 5.1% year on year.
Last month Rusbridger told staff that cost was also an issue in not launching a tabloid version, an issue that he also commented on in today's interview.
"Compared with what we would have had to do if we had gone dual [publishing broadsheet and a tabloid], we would be spending half of what it has cost The Times this year and about the same as The Indy. What we are proposing is not as expensive, compared with what we spent on the web," he said.
His comments suggest that if The Guardian does change size it will take the radical step of a permanent switch to a smaller size, heralding it as a radical redesign of the paper rather than a gradual and costly stepping stone.
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