New Orleans Becomes Biggest City Without a Daily Newspaper

Posted on May 24, 2012

The Wall Street Journal reports that New Orleans has just become the biggest city not to have a daily newspaper. Advance Publications says the New Orleans Times-Picayune will now only be published three times a week. The company, which is owned by the Newhouse family, said it will also scale three Alabama daily newspapers down to a three day a week publishing schedule.

The Times-Picayune is 175 years old. The new, reduced printing schedule will begin in the fall of 2012. The paper will be printed on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The change is all about cutting costs. Many staff will be fired and the print and digital version of the paper will be merged into one unit, according to Steven Newhouse, chairman of Advance.net.

Many fear that print newspapers are about to go the way of the Dodo. Falling ad revenues, rising paper prices and the defection of readers to the Internet are making the newspaper business increasingly unprofitable.