Davenport-based newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises plans to reduce the number of days it prints many of its newspapers to three days per week, according to a news report.
Lee Enterprises owns 77 daily newspapers in the U.S., including the Quad-City Times, The Dispatch-Argus and the Muscatine Journal.
The decision to cut publication days has been an industry trend and something that Lee Enterprises has discussed on recent investor calls, but no specific details on the printing plans have been released by the company, the Daily Montanan reported on dailymontana.com on Thursday, April 27.
“While we remain focused on operational excellence and reducing the cost structure of our legacy print business and growing profits, our main priority is to drive long-term sustainable digital revenue growth,” said Lee Chief Financial Officer Timothy Millage in that report.
The Daily Montanan reported that Lee is planning to reduce its printing schedule in all publications, except for 20 of its largest publications.
The Montanan, one of of Lee’s five Montana newspapers, said sources also confirmed that advertisers are being told about the changes because of the shift in printing days. It is also not known what days the print edition of the newspapers will publish. Some sources were told the change would take place this summer, according to the newspaper’s report.
On March 2, Lee released its preliminary first quarter fiscal results which showed its digital revenue and subscriptions are growing while print subscriptions, advertising and revenues continue to decline.
