The City Paper in Nashville is closing after 13 years, officials said.
The final issue will be Friday, Aug. 9.
Chris Ferrell, CEO of SouthComm, said, "In the last few days, we made the difficult decision to stop publishing The City Paper. After years of being subsidized by our investors and other Southcomm publications, we finally determined that there was not enough advertiser support for the free newsweekly model we were trying to sustain. The model proved very popular with readers, but in publishing the revenue doesn't necessarily follow the readership."
He said the "tough climate for advertising dollars made having multiple news properties extremely difficult, particularly a general interest publication like The City Paper."
Some staff members will be laid off and others will join other SouthComm publications.
"Going forward we will be merging some of our editorial resources into our profitable publications in Nashville in an effort to make them even stronger," Mr. Ferrell said. "You will see some of the names you have grown familiar with in The City Paper in the masthead of the Nashville Scene and Nashville Post. Both publications will expand their news coverage to fill the gap left by the closing of The City Paper. David Boclair will continue his coverage of Nashville sports, for example."
City Paper Editor Steve Cavendish said, "I cannot say enough about the job this staff has done in covering Nashville. We punched above our weight, told a lot of interesting stories, and held officials and institutions accountable. This city is a better place when you have more professional journalists covering it and I'm sorry we won't continue as a publication."
The City Paper began as a free Monday-Friday publication in November 2000.
It was founded by Brian Brown and included local owners.
SouthComm, owner of the Scene, Post, nFocus and other publications, bought the The City Paper from the Thompson family in 2008. It then moved to a weekly.