It's a trend that first took off in Britain, but now U.S. newspapers are considering a shift to tabloid size.

An excerpt from the NYT story:

The Jersey Journal is not alone in hoping that a conversion from broadsheet to tabloid will help bring readers back. Owners of more traditional, upscale newspapers are looking at the option as well.

Anthony Ridder, chairman of Knight Ridder Newspapers, said in an interview last week that he would soon identify two or three Knight Ridder markets where he planned to experiment with taking broadsheets to tabloid size. The company owns 31 daily newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald and The San Jose Mercury News.

"Tabs seem to work better in larger metro areas," Mr. Ridder said. "Initially, people were recommending that we try this in smaller markets where there would be less at risk, but we're feeling now that to get the benefit out of it, we need to focus on our larger markets."

"So that's where we're headed," he added, declining to say in which markets he would start the experiment.

While tabloids have caught on in Europe, American publishers have been balking because advertisers are not convinced they can get the same impact from tabloids as they can from broadsheets.

But broadsheets are in a period of decline, with weakening circulation and little growth in advertising as they compete with a growing number of outlets - including free metro tabloids - for consumer attention and advertising dollars. With a nervous eye on long-term survival, newspaper executives are increasingly considering shrinking their formats and hoping that less will prove to be more.

Here's a related blog posting from late November: Brit quality papers going tabloid.