Dr. Rod Mayer, publisher of The North Potomac Times, a newspaper focused on North Potomac, and the surrounding areas, including Gaithersburg, Rockville, Darnestown and Potomac, announced that he has made “a pure business decision to discontinue publishing The North Potomac Times.
“Despite appreciative readers and discussions with many potential advertisers, there has been a minimal increase in advertiser commitments over the nine months that I have been publishing The North Potomac Times.
“Simply put, advertising revenues continue to fall far short of the cost to produce the newspaper … and I just cannot continue to “invest” in the newspaper at the present time.
“If or when there will be future issues of the paper — in one form or another — at some date in the future, is undetermined at this point in time.”
Suspension of publication by the North Potomac Times is another sign of the times. According to MediaPost, “The Journal Press, a weekly newspaper serving the “Northern Neck” region of the Delmarva Peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay, ceased publishing on January 11, with both its print edition and Web site shuttered. The newspaper’s longtime owner, Ruth Herrink, passed away in 2013. Her surviving family members were unable to stem continuing losses in local advertising revenues.”
In addition, the New York Post reported that Media Life, “one of the pioneers of digital publishing for the ad industry, said it is shutting down, nearly 18 years after it was launched by Editor in Chief Gene Ely.
“Its demise was announced in a farewell note on its site … But in a note to Media Ink, Ely suggested it would return in a new incarnation.
““We expect to come back with related projects, and it just made sense to close down Media Life in order to get those rolling,” Ely told Media Ink, but declined to reveal specifics.
““They were trailblazers and, for a while, they had a novel position doing it all digitally,” said one ad professional. Its rivals include the digital MediaPost, backed by former Adweek co-owner Ken Fadner, and the two major print trades Crain Communications-owned Advertising Age and Adweek, now owned by Canadian private equity firm Beringer Capital.”
And, SmartCEO, a Baltimore-based publication that aimed to connect business leaders across eight markets, announced earlier this month that it has closed.
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