By Ed White
Associated Press
Wednesday, December 17, 2008

DETROIT, Dec. 16 -- Fighting to stay in business, Detroit's two daily newspapers will cut home delivery to three days a week, print smaller editions on other days and encourage people to get information online.

The Detroit market is the largest in the country to undergo that transformation. The move reflects a calculation facing the newspaper industry, with print circulation dropping as readers increasingly get their news on the Internet.

Dave Hunke, chief executive of Detroit Media Partnership, which runs the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, said the move announced Tuesday was not an experiment. He acknowledged it was a "big risk" but predicted it would succeed in keeping the two papers alive.

Detroit Media Partnership has lost millions of dollars this year, and Michigan has been hammered by home foreclosures, high unemployment and the near-collapse of the auto industry.

By curtailing home delivery on certain days, the papers reduce printing, fuel and labor expenses for editions that tend to attract fewer advertisements.

"We're here because we're fighting for our survival . . . But we're not doing this with our heads down," Hunke said. The Detroit News is owned by MediaNews Group, while the Free Press is owned by Gannett.

After the change, which will take effect in March, home subscribers will be able to get the Free Press delivered Thursday, Friday and Sunday for $12 a month. Or for that price a subscriber could get the News on Thursday and Friday, plus the Free Press on Sunday. The News does not publish a Sunday edition.

That subscription package -- which is $1 to $2 less than current monthly rates -- also will give people access to an online replica of the roughly 32-page editions of both papers that will be sold each day at newsstands. Both papers will regularly update the news on their free Web sites, http://freep.com and http://detnews.com.

Newsrooms will be spared layoffs but Detroit Media Partnership still expects to cut 9 percent of its work force of 2,151 employees, Hunke said.

Ron Renaud, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 372, said he fears drivers and other delivery personnel will be hit the hardest. Talks with unions will start in January.

Other newspapers have announced similar changes. The Christian Science Monitor recently said it would become the first national newspaper to drop its daily print edition and focus on publishing online. In Arizona, the East Valley Tribune next year plans to have print editions on four days instead of seven.