Copley sold the "Union" to conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife in 1977. While there were reports that Scaife lost millions of dollars every year on the newspaper, he enjoyed having a conservative voice in the capital of the largest liberal state in the union. In the late 1980s, the newspaper changed from the standard broadsheet size to a tabloid, and the "Union" launched a marketing campaign called "Grab the Tab." For the most part, it was a failure and the paper suffered losses in circulation.