'So farewell, then, The Grauniad?'

For quite a while Eye has been trailing all sorts of problems at the Guardian – the dictatorship of the Editor in Chief, Alan Rusbridger, sackings,  redundancies, and all kinds of woes.

Now the financial media has it in their sights.

At bottom is the continuing fall in circulation. It is now a measly 211,000, probably about the same as ‘The Muckshifter’.

This has been accompanied by a big fall in advertising revenue, especially from the public sector which is spending far less on staff recruitment. This fact alone is an indictment – a small circulation daily being medium of choice; small wonder, then, that government departments and local councils are stuffed with trendy lefties.

At the same time it has been burning through cash. It spent a fortune on buying printing presses for its conversion into a tabloid (or whatever fancy name they choose to give it) whilst at the same time bigging-up on its internet service that was shifting readers from print to screen. It has fancy new offices in London complete with essential gizmos like video studios. It spent a packet opening offices in New York, staffed with about 40 pricey hacks.

Rusbridger has concentrated on creating one of the biggest web-sites. It has been a remarkable success. But the reader switch has caused a big fall in advertising rates, which, of course, are priced on circulation, but the website has not compensated for this.

It has lost £150,000,000 in the last four years; Guardian Media Group made a pre-tax loss of about £77,000,000 in the year to April.

Needless to say, it has embarked on a brutal cost-cutting exercise, including the possible loss of 100 editorial jobs.

The Guardian has a somewhat curious supervisory regime. Rusbridger sits on the Board of CMG which means he combines editorial with commercial power, but he is also a member of the Scott Trust, the owner, which is supposed to supervise him.

Now there is talk of scrapping the print edition altogether and becoming a web-site outlet only.

I remember the great days of the Manchester Guardian when a couple of hundred miles separated it from the corrupting influence of Fleet Street. Now the readership is giving its verdict.