The Star-Ledger won’t reduce their weekly subscription price in January after they stop printing newspapers on Saturdays and shift to a six-day delivery schedule, a circulation department representative named Charlie said today.
The newspaper, which costs $1,247.48 annually for home delivery, will remain the same with no discounts, even though one of the seven newspapers (14%) will no longer be available.
Instead, that will be offset by a pledge that prices won’t increase in 2024.
“Sometimes there is an increase in the price due to printing and distribution costs, but this year there won’t be an increase,” Charlie told the New Jersey Globe.
Two other newspapers also owned by Advanced Publications, the Times of Trenton and the South Jersey Times, will also eliminate their Saturday newspapers. The Jersey Journal, which does not publish on Sundays, will continue its Saturday editions.
It’s unclear if Advance Publications, which owns the Star-Ledger, plans to shift to an all-digital format down the road; some of their newspapers have done that. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, a Star-Ledger sister newspaper, is now down to three days a week.
Print circulation for the Star-Ledger is down 81% over the last decade, and the size of their reporting staff is about one-third the size it was in 2005 when they last won a Pulitzer Prize. The Pew Research Center says that U.S. daily newspaper circulation dropped by 13% on weekdays and 16% on Sundays last year.
The state’s largest newspaper follows a trend by other dailies, including Gannett and the Press of Atlantic City, to end Saturday print editions.
The Star-Ledger announced in September that their last Saturday newspaper will be on December 30. They have promised digital content seven days a week.
It’s also unclear if the Star-Ledger newsstand price will go up next year.
“I have no idea,” Charlie said.