The Finger Lakes Times will reduce its print schedule from five days a week to three beginning the week of Sept. 13, a significant change for the 131-year-old newspaper that its publisher says is intended to control rapidly rising costs without increasing subscription prices or eliminating full-time jobs.
The Geneva-based newspaper will continue publishing six days a week, but printed editions will appear only Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Digital e-editions will be produced Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Publisher and Executive Editor Mike Cutillo announced in a column published Saturday.
Cutillo said the decision reflects mounting costs throughout the print operation, including newsprint, ink, aluminum printing plates, transportation, U.S. Postal Service delivery and services such as comics, puzzles, syndicated columns and wire reports.
Continuing with five printed editions would require the newspaper to increase annual subscription prices by at least $100 to keep pace with those costs, Cutillo wrote.
Instead, the newspaper is shifting more of its weekly production to digital while maintaining three print editions.
The first digital-only edition under the new schedule will be Monday, Sept. 14. A printed edition will follow Tuesday, Sept. 15, followed by another digital-only edition Wednesday and a printed newspaper Thursday.
Cutillo said the change will allow the company to avoid raising subscription prices and avoid layoffs among its full-time staff.
A broader shift away from daily printing
While the change is significant locally, it reflects a much broader transformation across the newspaper industry.
Cutillo cited research showing 136 newspapers nationwide closed in 2025 after another 130 shut down in 2024. More than 3,500 newspapers, including daily and weekly publications, have closed since 2005.
The number of daily newspapers in the United States has also fallen below 1,000.
Cutillo said there are now 938 daily newspapers nationally and roughly 80% already operate on reduced print schedules, with many publishing physical newspapers three or four days each week.
The Finger Lakes Times will remain classified as a daily newspaper because it will continue publishing six days per week, even though half of those editions will be digital-only.
The newspaper’s parent company, Community Media Group, is making similar changes at newspapers of comparable size.
Cutillo pointed to publications in Ludington, Michigan; DuBois and Clearfield, Pennsylvania; Olean and other markets that have already transitioned to fewer print days.
Rising costs collide with shrinking print economics
The decision highlights a fundamental problem facing local newspapers: Printing and physically delivering a newspaper continues to become more expensive at the same time readers and advertisers increasingly consume news digitally.
Cutillo said there isn’t a single expense driving the change.
Instead, newspapers are dealing simultaneously with higher costs for raw materials, gasoline, transportation, postal delivery, outside content and other services involved in producing a physical edition.
The economic pressure has accelerated a shift that was already underway as readers increasingly use websites, mobile apps, social media and electronic replicas of printed editions.
Cutillo, who described himself as someone who still prefers newspapers, magazines and books in print, said reducing the number of printed editions could ultimately help preserve the print product rather than eliminate it.
Remaining on the existing schedule while expenses continue rising could threaten the viability of the entire newspaper over time, he wrote.
The new model, he argued, gives the publication a better chance of maintaining both print and digital operations for the foreseeable future.
Daily puzzles will remain
Some features closely associated with the printed newspaper will continue despite the reduced schedule.
Crosswords, Sudoku, Jumble and other puzzles will be doubled up in the Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday editions so readers continue receiving the same volume over the course of the week.
Subscribers will increasingly rely on the newspaper’s website, mobile app and digital edition on days when a physical newspaper isn’t produced.
The newspaper is also encouraging readers who haven’t activated digital access or downloaded its app to contact the Finger Lakes Times for assistance.
The shift does not mean the newspaper is reducing the number of days it produces news. Reporting and digital publication will continue throughout the week.
Newspaper has changed before
The print reduction becomes another major transition in a newspaper that has repeatedly changed during its history.
The publication began May 28, 1895, as the Geneva Daily Times.
Its name changed to The Geneva Times during the 1960s before becoming the Finger Lakes Times in 1977, reflecting its expansion beyond Geneva into a broader regional publication.
The move away from five printed editions represents a different kind of change, driven less by geographic expansion than by the economics of producing a physical newspaper.
Cutillo acknowledged that longtime subscribers who prefer print may find the transition difficult.
But he framed the choice as one between adapting the production model now or potentially facing more severe consequences later.
“The bottom line is that businesses sometimes have to change in order to stay in business,” Cutillo wrote. “Even 131-year-old newspapers.”
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