The Rutland Herald is restoring two weekdays to its print publication schedule, the first of several changes under new ownership. On Saturday Editor-in Chief Rob Mitchell announced that the Herald and its sister publication the Times Argus would publish a print edition Tuesday through Saturday beginning in mid-November. The paper is currently printed Thursday through Sunday.
The Saturday paper will be a “weekender edition” and will bring back publication of color comics, which had been eliminated in May. It will also include the weekly TV Guide, shopping inserts, and much of the content currently available in the Sunday paper. According to Mitchell, subscription fees for home delivery subscribers will not increase as a result of the change.
“This is one of many steps that will continue the course of these newspapers back from the brink of insolvency,” Mitchell wrote.
In an email Mitchell said the Herald will not publish an e-paper on Sunday or Monday but will update the website on those days. “We’re going to make this change first,” he wrote, “and then assess what we need to do for Mondays.”
In June the Herald announced that it was scaling back its print publication schedule to just four days a week in an attempt to cut costs and avoid layoffs. At the time it was the oldest continuously family-owned newspaper in the United States and one of just a handful of dailies still operating in Vermont.
In September the paper was sold to Reade Brower, a Maine-based newspaper publisher and Chip Harris, co-founder of Upper Valley Press, Inc. in New Hampshire where the Herald and Times Argus are printed.
Vermont currently has five dailies including the St. Albans Messenger, The Bennington Banner, the Brattleboro Reformer, the Burlington Free Press, and the Caledonian-Record. The Newport Daily Express has published five days a week since 1980.
The Herald and Times Argus will publish a print edition the day after the election on Wednesday, November 9 as well as a weekend paper that Saturday. The full printing and delivery schedule will begin the following week.