Reading the Monday paper will soon be a thing of the past in St. Louis.
The St. Louis-Post Dispatch said Friday that it will be ending its Monday print edition effective Nov. 3 and go digital only. Executive Editor Alan Achkar announced the move in a note on the newspaper’s website.
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“The change to our Monday publication will help us focus our resources and time on the products readers are using the most,” he wrote. “And our commitment to local news has not changed.”
A later deadline, Achkar wrote, will help more news make it into the Monday e-edition of the paper.
The daily newspaper saw its weekly print subscription decrease 91% from 2005 to 2024, plummeting to 24,263 subscribers from 281,461, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. The Sunday print edition likewise lost readership: In 2005, it had 437,311 subscribers but dropped to 37,139 in 2024.
During the same period, digital grew about 1,100% but is less than one-fifth the number of weekly print subscribers in 2005.
Lee Enterprises, the Post-Dispatch’s owner, has touted digital subscriptions as the way forward for its publications. In August 2024, Lee said that more than 50% of its revenue came from digital, which it called “digital sustainability.”
Lee’s third-quarter report shows a net loss of $2 million and $455 million of outstanding debt.
In May, Lee reported that it had incurred $2 million in expenses after a February cybersecurity attack.
This isn’t the only cost-saving measure enacted by the Post-Dispatch. Last week, Lee shuttered its food magazine, Feast, and let go of the publication’s staff.
In January, the Post-Dispatch closed its press, laying off 72 employees in the process, and began outsourcing the paper’s printing shortly after laying off six newsroom staffers.
St. Louis Public Radio's Kate Grumke contributed reporting to this story.
This story has been updated with 2024 subscription numbers.
