The State drops Saturday print

The State (Columbia, South Carolina) is dropping its Saturday print edition, starting the week of Jan. 19. The paper will still deliver a Saturday e-edition.

“For decades, we gave away our product at a fraction of its value because advertising paid the freight. But our advertising revenue has cratered from the days when a market was just a newspaper and a couple of television stations,” the paper wrote.

“Like any business, we’ve had to adjust. We’ve raised prices to ask you to pay closer to what it costs to produce and deliver an actual printed newspaper, and we’ve cut expenses to keep those subscription rates at a level that represents value,” the paper said.

The Friday and Sunday editions will be bigger to carry the puzzles, comics and TV listings that would appear on Saturdays, the paper said.

McClatchy owns the paper. In its third quarter earnings report released in mid-November, McClatchy said it plans to cut Saturday editions of all of its 30 publications in 14 states by the end of 2020.

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