November 14, 2024

‘Unrelenting rising costs’: Last printed Kamloops newspaper shuts down after 35 years

Doull #Doull

Kamloops This Week has announced it is shutting down, leaving the Interior B.C. city without a printed newspaper for the first time since 1884.

In a post earlier this week on its website, Kamloops This Week said its final print edition will be Oct. 25. It blamed the reason for the closure on various challenges including market conditions and “unrelenting rising costs.”

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“We face a bunch of issues that are outside of our control,” said Robert Doull, president of Aberdeen Publishing, the company that owns Kamloops This Week.

“Our paper costs have increased. Our printer went out of business with 10 days’ notice and the sole available replacement is only able to give us a smaller page size at a higher price.”

The post also said that website views for the publication have fallen by half because of Meta and Google blocking news links, while lease rates for office space have doubled.

The Kamloops Daily News ceased publication in 2014 after publishing for more than 80 years but there is still an online version.

Also this week, Glacier Media announced it is shutting down both the Dawson Creek Mirror and Fort St. John’s Alaska Highway News.

The Alaska Highway News was first published in 1943 and the first incarnation of the Mirror arrived in 1930.

Both newspapers published weekly, on Thursdays, and maintained a daily news presence online.

ticrawford@postmedia.com

—with files from The Canadian Press

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