THREE RIVERS, MI (WTVB) – A long time area newspaper that has been published for over a century is going out of business.
The Three Rivers Commercial-News will cease publication after 127 years with this Saturday’s edition.
Editor and Publisher Dirk Milliman announced the closure to staff on Tuesday.
Milliman said in a statement published by the newspaper, “The decision to continue or not continue this historic publication was not an easy one. It is a decision we have been struggling with for several years, but our current financial situation brought the decision to a head. The reality became that we could not generate enough revenue to remain viable. We do not have enough regular advertisers who use our products to promote their businesses. The prominence of social media as changed the whole dynamic of information sharing, of news and news reporting. And like many small businesses, we never really recovered from the pandemic. Unfortunately, it is just our time.”
The Commercial-News has been published in Three Rivers at least weekly since 1895. Three Rivers Commercial, Inc. has been owned by the Milliman family since 1981.
Milliman went on to say they had been shopping for a new owner for several years, “But the people and the groups who used to buy local newspapers aren’t buying them anymore. And no one local seemed inclined to buy this long-standing local business.”
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