CAMDEN – The VillageSoup Citizen and VillageSoup Times weekly newspapers will begin publishing in a tabloid format beginning with the Aug. 3 issues, the company announced this week.

Publisher Derek Anderson said the change in format, which will feature a single centerfold paper, will more resemble a magazine in its page flow. The “friendlier format,” he said, also will feature more color pages.

Anderson also promised greater local news coverage with the transformation.

The change was made, he said in the announcement, because surveys have shown readers prefer the more compact “tab” layout.

VillageSoup began serving the Knox County area through its Community Online in 1998. It then expanded its news and community coverage into Waldo County. In 2003, the company launched the Times, covering Knox County. Later that year it launched the Citizen, covering Waldo County.

The Times listed its weekly circulation at just over 8,000 last fall. The Citizen will file a publisher’s statement this fall with a projected paid circulation of more than 5,000 weekly.

“Tabloid layout requires a more concise writing style than the broadsheet layout does,” Anderson said. “Because VillageSoup writes simultaneously for both online and print publication, we have long practiced this style.”

The Times won the Maine Press Association’s General Excellence Award for its circulation class in 2004, and the New England Newspaper Association gave the paper its top honor as 2005 Weekly Newspaper of the Year.