Hernando Today to trim publication by two days

BROOKSVILLE -- Hernando Today, the local publication of the Tampa Tribune, has announced that it will cease publishing Monday and Tuesday editions beginning Jan. 19.

The move will leave the Hernando Times as the only newspaper in the county with a seven-day-a-week print edition.

In a story on its front page Tuesday, Hernando Today said the decision to reduce the frequency of publication was made because of the poor economy and changes in the newspaper industry.
“Our industry is facing more challenges than the economic downturn,” publisher Duane Chichester said in the story. “We have more competition than ever before for advertising dollars and our industry Web sites are not yet producing enough revenue to replace print revenue losses.”

The story said there would not be a reduction in local news coverage and that the newspaper’s staff would post news to its Web site on the days it does not publish.

Chichester did not indicate whether the size of Hernando Today’s staff would be reduced, but he did not rule that out. The paper cut staffers last year. He did not say whether subscribers will be entitled to any refunds on their subscriptions.

Chichester did not return a phone call from the Times on Tuesday.

The Tribune made a similar move in Pasco County several months ago and now publishes a Pasco Tribune section only Wednesday through Sunday. Hernando Today and the Tampa Tribune are both owned by Media General, based in Richmond, Va. The company also owns WFLA-Ch. 8 in Tampa.

Media General has owned Hernando Today since the early 1990s and converted it from three days a week to daily publication after it stopped publishing a Hernando Tribune section in 1996. At that time, Tribune subscribers began receiving Hernando Today with their paper each day. Hernando Today can also be purchased as a separate publication.

Hernando Today’s circulation cannot be verified because it is not a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the nonprofit association of advertisers, advertising agencies and publishers that tracks newspapers’ circulation.

Mike Konrad, Times staff writer