New Caledonian readers will have to say goodbye to their only local daily paper. From 1is January 2023, Caledonian News will in fact no longer be broadcast in a digital version, the management of the title informed its employees last week.
Bought in 2013 by a trio of local shareholders from the Hersant group, the newspaper is facing “a constant decline in circulation, a doubling of the price of paper and a collapse of the advertising market”explained to Agence France-Presse Yves Delauw, managing director of the Melchior group, owner of the Caledonian News.
A weekly publication should see the light of day
In the backup procedure since April 2021, the daily will therefore be available in digital version from Monday to Friday. “However, we will expand our offer with an ambitious weekly magazine which will be delivered each week to our subscribers’ mailboxes and to most of our current points of sale”said Mr. Delauw.
The title had launched in recent months steps to find investors on the territory or in mainland France, steps that have remained in vain, despite the support of the Ministry of Finance.
This new strategy, of which the editorial staff was informed last week, will lead to the closure of one of the two printing works of the Melchior group, which also has a radio, a free title, magazines and which employs around 145 people. According to New Caledonia the 1timeonly five of the twenty-two employees of the rotary will be reclassified.
Founded in 1971, Caledonian News had been bought in 1987 by former press boss Robert Hersant.