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The Tribune, a joint venture between the Washington Post and the New York Times, has not made a profit since 1999. Last year, howerver, the audited worldwide circulation of the IHT increased by 9% to a high of 263,878.

The paper is being criticised in some quarters for carrying out-of-date news stories because, of the 180 markets in which it is distributed, only around 30 sell it on the day of publication. According to the IHT, 94% of its European readership gets the newspaper on the same day of publication.

Also in its defence, the IHT says it is not unusual for articles that are submitted to the IHT from The

New York Times and Washington Post's journalists to be published first in the IHT. A spokeswoman for the IHT said: "This is because our editorial team is based in Paris and, as such, we close and print the day's edition before our owners' own newspapers can in the US."

The view that the paper is out of date is strengthened by the fact that it has an old-fashioned design -- despite having been redesigned earlier this year, it still publishes in black and white.

In an article on the Slate website, the paper was accused of using the same contributors for its op-ed pages that it has used for more than a decade, namely the late and much-respected NY Times writer Flora Lewis.

But the paper says recent contributors to its op-ed page have included Kofi Annan, Germany's chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder, Bill Clinton and EU president Romano Prodi.

To help combat its troubles, it raised its cover price in January, blaming a 20% hike in the cost of newsprint in Europe and falling advertising revenues. It currently retails at £1.20 in London and is thought to be the most expensive daily in the world. Each issue usually has only 16 or 20 pages.

In April, the Tribune announced it was pulling another joint publication -- the two-year-old English-language daily it publishes with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the prestigious German daily.

At the same time, the New York Times began publishing a weekly English-language supplement in French newspaper Le Monde.

The New York Times has a strong brand outside the US, as well as domestically. This is backed up by claims that 18% of traffic to its website comes from outside the US. This equates to around 1m potential Times readers around the world, with the largest non-US audiences in Canada and the UK.

The Times has denied that it is planning to muscle in on the Tribune's markets, and that it still stands behind its joint venture with the Post.

However, many believe that if a weekly New York Times-backed supplement is successful in France, there would be little need for the Tribune to continue publishing in that market.

It is also believed that if the Times' French supplement works, it will begin to eye up other markets and if its supplements start to make money, while the Tribune loses it, it would make perfect sense to close one loss-making title in favour of a new, more lucrative format.

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