SLO Tribune eliminating Saturday print publication

July 31, 2019

The SLO Tribune is slashing one day a week of print publishing after parent company McClatchy reported a net loss of $42 million in the first quarter of 2019. [Cal Coast Times]

Starting in November, the 80-year-old newspaper will no longer print a Saturday paper, the publisher announced on Tuesday. The decision follows the downsizing of the newspaper’s operation, the Tribune moved to a smaller office earlier this year.

Readership at the Tribune had been declining for more than a decade. In a recent Tribune report to the Alliance for Audited Media, for the first quarter of 2019, the editor noted a total daily circulation of 16,267, which included 11,123 printed papers and 5,144 digital subscribers.

Tribune Publisher Tim Ritchey spun the reduction in publication as a way to serve their reader’s changing habits.

“As reader’s habits change, we are adapting to serve them in new ways,” Ritchey wrote. “We are making this strategic change to invest in out future.”

Slashing production, as anticipated, resulted in a dive in McClatchy stock prices. Shares were off more than 9 percent for the day, closing at $2.21 a share.