Arizona's earliest continuously released daily newspaper, the Tucson Citizen, will publish its final print edition Saturday after its owner, Gannett Co. gci, unsuccessful to locate a buyer.
The closure makes Tucson the most recent two-newspaper town to get rid of certainly one of its dailies. The Citizen released within the mid-day as the Arizona Daily Star seems morning.
The Citizen has battled for a long time from the Star, a 117,000-circulation newspaper. Throughout the Citizen's heyday within the sixties, circulation involved 60,000, however it had fallen to 17,000.
Kate Marymont, Gannett's v . p . for news, told the 138-year-old newspaper's staff Friday the Citizen continues having a website edition supplying commentary and opinion but no news coverage. Gannett, the country's biggest newspaper company, also puts out USA TODAY and it is website, USATODAY.com.
The joint operating agreement Gannett has with Lee Businesses, which puts out the Arizona Daily Star, will finish Saturday. The companies' business partnership, Tucson Newspapers, continues outdoors the legal framework of the joint operating agreement, Marymont stated.
Underneath the JOA, Lee and Gannett shared costs and profits in the two newspapers, with Tucson Newspapers Corporation. (TNI) handling all non-editorial functions, from advertising to circulation.
Bob Dickey, leader of Gannett's U.S. Community Posting Division, stated inside a statement that TNI prints a Tucson Citizen editorial weekly within the Star to grow the achieve from the Citizen's voice.
"Dramatic alterations in our industry combined with difficult economy — particularly in this area — means it's no more viable to create two daily printed newspapers in Tucson," Dickey stated.
The Citizen may be the latest casualty of the newspaper industry battling to outlive despite dwindling advertising revenue and high Internet competition. The fight continues to be especially tough in 2-newspaper metropolitan areas like Tucson.
Already this season, E.W. Scripps closed the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado, and Hearst stopped printing the Dallas Publish-Intelligencer, which makes it a news website. The Christian Science Monitor stopped daily publication in support of an every week print edition and daily online news.
On Thursday, the Ann Arbor News in Michigan stated its last day's publication is going to be This summer 23.
Other major newspaper companies, including Tribune Co., who owns the Chicago Tribune and La Occasions, have declared personal bankruptcy protection.
Gannett introduced in The month of january it would close the Citizen whether it did not look for a buyer for several assets by March 21.
Four days prior to the planned closing, Gannett stated the Citizen would stay open although it discussed with two interested purchasers. Individuals talks demonstrated not successful.
"Ultimately, there have been no purchasers," Marymont told the Citizen staff.
She stated Gannett would recognition severance pay plans that were introduced in The month of january. It had been unclear the number of from the Citizen's 65 employees would lose their jobs.
The Arizona Citizen began on March. 15, 1870, by John Wasson, a newspaper guy from California, with behind-the-moments the aid of Richard McCormick, the territory's governor and then territorial delegate to Congress.
The newpaper transformed possession several occasions within the next a century until Gannett purchased in 1976, only a couple of years following a U.S. Top Court situation including the Citizen brought Congress to pass through the Newspaper Upkeep Act, which contained new rules for joint operating contracts, permitting competing newspapers to conduct business together. Gannett also transformed the title towards the Tucson Citizen.
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