The Concord Monitor began as a daily newspaper in 1864. For most of its existence, that meant publishing six days a week. In the 1990s, at the height of the newspaper boom, the Sunday Monitor was added as a way to provide a bigger weekend edition.
In a few weeks, the Monitor will return to six days of print publication and home delivery. Instead of a Sunday Monitor, readers will receive a larger Weekend Edition on Saturdays. Our final Sunday Monitor will be published on Feb. 25 and the first Weekend Edition will be delivered on Saturday, March 2.
While we are returning to six days of print publication, we are not reducing the amount of local news. In fact, two additional news reporters will be joining our newsroom this year, giving us the most local news gatherers we’ve had in several years.
Although we won’t publish a print edition on Sunday, we’ll continue to post stories every day on concordmonitor.com. The weekly subscription price will remain unchanged.
We recognize that this is a big change for those who read our news exclusively in print. But we are also excited to bring you some big digital additions in the weeks ahead, including an app (making things better for smartphone users), online puzzles and access to our newspaper archive. If you’re a print subscriber, these digital offerings will be available to you as well as long as you have registered your account. If you haven’t done so, you can register your online account by visiting tinyurl.com/56dv2kaj. You can learn more about the new digital features below.
This move to a Weekend Edition is part of a wider industry trend. Financial pressures have already forced most of our peers to reduce the number of days they print a newspaper. As far as we can tell, we’re the last daily paper in New Hampshire, Maine or Vermont to make the change to six days. Some newsrooms, especially those owned by large chains or hedge funds, have stopped their print publications altogether.
As a locally controlled and family-run company with its own printing press, we believe strongly the printed newspaper will remain a vital part of our offerings for years to come.
But in a business as challenging as local journalism, the biggest danger is in standing still. We’re continuing to adapt to make sure how we deliver news meets the needs of our community. More readers than ever are getting our news online, either straight from our website, in our collection of newsletters or through our social media channels.
You’ll get a Weekend Edition on Saturdays. It will include some of our best work of the week, plus local sports, our opinion pages, enhanced business coverage including real estate sales and features like our gardening, farming and history columns. You’ll also get extra puzzles in the Saturday edition to keep you busy throughout the weekend.
The Concord Monitor app, available for download on Apple and Android devices, currently allows you to read the digital replica of the print edition. We’re upgrading the app so you can also use it to read all our latest content. That means you’ll be able to tailor the app to show you the news you’re most interested in first. You can also toggle between different reading experiences and you’ll be able to set up your account to receive notifications of important news events.
We’ll be introducing Puzzmo, a free collection of digital puzzles that work well on your computer, tablet and especially your smartphone. You’ll find word games like the daily crossword and Spell Tower, other puzzles like FlipArt and even an online version of chess. You’ll be able to accumulate scores and compete against others.
As a subscriber, you’ll now have far deeper access to our archives. You’ll be able to access about 10 years of replica print editions in either our app, your smartphone or any computer. We’re also working to offer editions of the Concord Monitor all the way back to 1947 through our partnership with Newspapers.com. You’ll be able to search for the stories, the people, the places and the events that you’d like to revisit. If you want to see how the Monitor reported on the 1969 moon landing, those pages and stories will be just a few clicks away.
If you have any questions, please contact customer service at 603-224-4287 or customerservice@cmonitor.com.
Thank you for choosing to read the Concord Monitor. Your support is essential to our ability to provide local news you can’t find anywhere else.
Steve Leone
Publisher