Media Forum: Where to next for the Telegraph Group?

Are the Barclay brothers up to the challenge of getting their new acquisition back on track, Alasdair Reid enquires.

So, it's the Barclays. Down at The Telegraph they were over the proverbial moon about the fact that it was the twins' money (pounds 665 million of it) that talked in the end. Such was the sense of euphoria, you'd have thought they've all been under siege these past few months Which in some respects they were - had they won the auction process, some of the other bidders would have come in with all the thoughtful delicacy of a latter-day Vlad the Impaler.

In contrast, much was made of the belief that the Barclay brothers were unlikely, in the words of the Telegraph Group's chief executive, Jeremy Deedes, to 'rush in and chuck the furniture about'.

Which is reassuring if you're a connoisseur of fine interior decor - but, as many commentators have pointed out, the status quo may not necessarily be a clever option either. After all, recent performance has hardly been reassuring. Despite an pounds 8 million advertising campaign, The Daily Telegraph's circulation has continued to decline - not so long ago, it was almost unthinkable for its sale to slip below the 'psychological' one million mark, but now, if you strip out bulks, it's flirting with the wrong side of 900,000.

So maybe someone needs to chuck a few chairs around. The whole auction process has been a distraction during the most frenzied period of product innovation the broadsheet market has seen in decades. The Independent has now completed its highly successful evolution from broadsheet to compact format while The Times has gone halfway down that path and in many areas is offering its readers a choice between classic and dinky formats.

However, the solution is not obvious at all, Len Sanderson, an advisor to one of the consortia that dropped out of the bidding process, says.

'I wouldn't go tabloid. The Times hasn't made a success of it and is losing money because of that. And the rationale isn't the same because, in comparison with other titles, commuters represent a smaller proportion of The Telegraph's readership. It should stay broadsheet. Everyone is looking for a point of difference - why shouldn't that be The Telegraph's?' he asks.