Readers of the Belfast Telegraph are now able to read the paper with their breakfast after it launched a new compact morning edition.

As the new edition hit the streets for the first time yesterday the Telegraph became the only paper in the UK to use both compact and broadsheet formats for different editions on the same day.

Editor Edmund Curran told HoldtheFrontPage: “The launch went extremely well; I’m delighted with the appearance of the paper. It was printed in time during the night and distributed as planned.

“The staff have been exceptionally good. Having two different newspaper formats is a tremendous feat on their behalf.”

Edmund said the launch of the Telegraph’s Saturday morning compact edition last month paved the way for the weekday edition which had a first print run of 40,000.

He said: “There’s been a big upsurge in circulation so we decided to go ahead before Easter with the new morning edition.

“We are really trying to achieve incremental sales in the morning by making the paper available over a longer period and giving it a longer shelf life.

“People are used to getting their news 24 hours a day so we’ve said ‘Why shouldn’t newspapers think like that?’, ‘Why should people have to wait until 3pm?’.”

The Telegraph’s evening editions will remain in their current broadsheet format.

Edmund said: “We are maintaining our evening franchise as it is. The Belfast Telegraph is one of the most successful newspapers in Europe – we have a very enviable advertising base and we’re not going to damage that.

“We reached an agreement with the NUJ last autumn to do this ourselves by adding a couple of sub-editors, sports staff, using shift work and a little help from the Press Association.

“We are one of very few organisations that have never had a morning newspaper. Traditionally we have our staff in at dawn who then work until late afternoon but now people are here until midnight.”

“Throughout our 134 years we have always been the leading evening newspaper in Northern Ireland and we are now the fifth largest regional evening paper in the UK with a circulation of around 94,000.”