On Wednesday, MLive announced all of its print newspapers will be discontinued and moved fully online. According to the company, the final print editions of each paper will be published on December 6.
MLive community president John Hiner said data showed digital and online newspaper subscribers surpassed print subscribers for the first time this year.
“You aren’t going to get younger people to subscribe to print, and that’s been an industry-wide thing for a couple of decades now. So digital formats have really allowed our reach to grow," Hiner said.
Hiner said the eight local papers owned by MLive — which include the Kalamazoo Gazette and Grand Rapids Press — will continue to be published online. He said the company is not planning to lay off any newsroom staff.
"We're committed to the journalistic staffing that we have and we're committed to the brands that we have in these communities," Hiner said.
A campaign to switch
MLive has been encouraging subscribers to switch from print to digital for more than two years.
"Clicking and swiping will save you from inky fingers. Switching to the online newspaper can save you up to 40%," read one promotional email sent by the Kalamazoo Gazette to a print subscriber in August 2024.
"Same but better. Up to 40% off!" read the subject line of an April 2025 email. "The daily online newspaper looks identical to the print version," it continued.
MLive also repeatedly called subscribers to urge them to switch, leaving messages like this one:
Hiner acknowledged the campaign, and said again that MLive was making the switch to digital because that is what's best for its customers.
He said the move was not made out of a need for cost-cutting. "We don't sit in meetings and say: 'we need to cut costs'. This is how we best serve our readers, best serve our communities, and best invest in products that they want," Hiner said.
But in the MLive announcement, Hiner did say that printing newspapers wasn't "economically sustainable":
"The demand for that format has fallen steadily, to the point that it’s no longer economically sustainable to produce and deliver," Hiner told MLive.
Hiner also acknowledged that some readers simply won't switch from print to digital, in some cases because they can't.
"A lot of the people don't have internet. They don't have internet access or internet devices. So there's not much we can do if they can't get online. So we realized we're going to lose some people," Hiner said. "We're sad to lose longtime customers. We understand that they’re sad to see this product go. But again — the astronomical growth of people accessing news in their communities and keeping news vital in communities – digital has been a godsend for other people.”
As for paper carriers that deliver MLive's newspapers, Hiner said those employees are independent contractors who were never directly employed by MLive.
