NJ Advance Media has announced its intention of ending the print editions of The (Newark) Star-Ledger (the largest circulation newspaper in New Jersey according to Wikipedia) and sister papers The Times of Trenton and The South Jersey Times. The newspapers will continue as daily online newspapers:
The Star-Ledger will cease publishing a print newspaper and will close its Montville production facility in February 2025. The decision was made by the Star-Ledger’s owner, Newark Morning Ledger Co., due to rising costs, decreasing circulation and reduced demand for print.
In addition, Advance Local, which owns NJ Advance Media and NJ.com, announced that it is ending print publication of dailies The Times of Trenton and the South Jersey Times, as well as the weekly Hunterdon County Democrat. Online newspapers for The Star-Ledger, The Times of Trenton and South Jersey Times will continue to be produced seven days a week for subscribers.
The final print editions of the Star-Ledger, Times of Trenton and South Jersey Times will be published on Feb. 2, 2025.
“Today’s announcement represents the next step into the digital future of journalism in New Jersey,” said Steve Alessi, President of NJ Advance Media … Alessi said that that ceasing print publication will allow NJ Advance Media to reallocate resources to strengthen its core newsroom.
In August, the most recent month for which data is available, NJ.com ranked as the #1 local news site in the country, according to Comscore, a media measurement and analytics company. That month, the site had 15.2 million unique visitors, placing it even ahead of such national news brands as Wired, The Atlantic and Slate on Comscore’s rankings.
NJ Advance Media and the three New Jersey papers are part of the family owned Newhouse Publishing.
Our interest here are the papers’ comic pages. While the comics, like the papers, will continue online the printed comic strips which pays much better than the online versions will cease.
The Star-Ledger printed an amazing 32 comic strips and panels daily on a page and a half.
The above comics pages from October 1, 2024 edition of The Star-Ledger show the comics to be Crankshaft*, Pickles*, Non Sequitur*, Frazz*, Zits*, F Minus, Pearls Before Swine*, Phoebe and Her Unicorn, Baby Blues*, JumpStart*, Get Fuzzy*, Mutts*, Over The Hedge*, Rhymes With Orange*, Luann*, Peanuts*, Pardon My Planet, Close To Home, Crabgrass*, Beetle Bailey*, Blondie*, Momma*, Sally Forth*, Hägar The Horrible*, Mother Goose and Grimm, Wizard Of Id*, The Family Circus*, Dennis The Menace*, Andy Capp, Shoe, Ziggy*, and The Lockhorns*.
The Star-Ledger’s Sunday Funnies – here from the September 29, 2024 issue – presents 37 comics in a rarely seen in 2024 eight page section. Those comics are the twenty-five starred(*) comics above plus For Better or For Worse, Garfield, Doonesbury, Prince Valiant, Kidtown, Slylock Fox, Rose is Rose, Foxtrot, Heathcliff, Flo & Friends, Broom-Hilda, and Heart of the City.
The Star-Ledger’s sister papers, The Times of Trenton and The South Jersey Times, run the exact same daily comics page (22 on one page) with Baby Blues†, Adam @ Home, Big Nate, The Born Loser, Classic Peanuts*, F Minus, Crabgrass*†, Doonesbury*†, For Better or For Worse†, Frank and Ernest*, Frazz, Garfield†, Get Fuzzy*, Grand Avenue Phoebe and Her Unicorn, Wallace the Brave, Loose Parts, Luann, Pickles*†, Pearls Before Swine†, Wizard of Id, and Zits*.
The Sunday Funnies section of The Times of Trenton (four pages) consists of the starred(*) titles above and Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Sally Forth, Marmaduke, Uncle Art’s Funland, Red and Rover, Nancy, Hi and Lois, JumpStart, Monty, Crankshaft, and Mutts.
While the Sunday color comics section of The South Jersey Times (four pages) includes the crossed(†) comics above plus Marmaduke, Foxtrot, Short Cuts, Slylock Fox, Beetle Bailey, Heart of the City, Ziggy, and Color Me Posh, with four of the comics in half-page format.
Below are the September 29, 2024 Sunday comics sections of The Times of Trenton and The South Jersey Times separated by the October 1 comics page of The Times of Trenton.
The weekly Hunterdon County Democrat carried no comics.
At the same time NJ Advance announced that The Jersey Journal would also shut down, with no online presence.
After serving Hudson County for 157 years, The Jersey Journal announced Wednesday that it will cease publication on Saturday, February 1.
The newspaper said it could not remain in business following a decision by The Star-Ledger to close its production facility in Montville, N.J., which prints The Jersey Journal and several other newspapers. The Journal outsourced its printing several years ago to The Star-Ledger.
Facing a likely increase in cost to find a new printer and the fact that its circulation is small and dependent on newsstand sales, The Journal concluded that it had to end publication. “We fought as hard as we can for as long as we could,” said David Blomquist, The Journal’s editor and publisher. “An online-only publication simply would not have enough scale to support the strong, politically independent journalism that has distinguished The Journal.”
The Jersey City tabloid published six days a week with no Sunday edition.
The Journal carried 24 comic strips on two pages and 3 comic panels on their classifieds and puzzle pages.
The Jersey Journal comics from the September 30, 2024 edition: Daddy’s Home. Big Nate, Baldo, Blondie, One Big Happy, Beetle Bailey, Zits, Hägar the Horrible, Crabgrass, JumpStart, Get Fuzzy, Garfield, Sherman’s Lagoon, Luann, Momma, Over the Hedge, For Better or For Worse, Pearls Before Swine, Lio, Candorville, Mutts, Brewster Rockit, Mother Goose and Grimm, Frazz, Marmaduke, Bizarro, and Close to Home.
Additional note: It was not out of the ordinary for the papers, especially The Star-Ledger, to run a couple editorial cartoons on their Opinion page – one from the syndicates and one from The Star-Ledger’s editorial cartoonist Drew Sheneman. We will assume that Drew will continue to contribute editorial cartoons to the online papers on a regular basis.
This is horrible news! The Star-Ledger always had a great comics section, many strips spread out over many pages, and I credit at least part of my comics fandom to growing up reading a newspaper that liked having comics.