The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785. Since 1981 it has been a subsidiary of News International, under Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation group. It has a dairy circulation of around 400,000 copies. The Times is the originator of the Times Roman typeface, developed due to its legibility in low-tech printing. The Times was printed as a broadsheet for 219 years but switched to a more compact size in 2004 to be easier to read on public transport and to appeal to younger readers.