Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the Glasgow Daily Times’ transition to digital, as the paper has been shut down since 2020.

The Bowling Green Daily News decided to cut back to three days a week from its previous six-day print model as audiences change how they read news, and the print prices soar higher.

Joe Imel, the Regional Publisher of the BGDN, said the cutback allows for BGDN to put more hours into its coverage, while also expanding further into nearby communities. It also allows BGDN to feature a larger print and a wider selection of fonts, as seen on Wednesday’s print edition. 

Imel describes the phone as the “Swiss Army knife” of communication. Younger audiences are literate in its uses and are turning away from traditional sources of news as social media and online access grow. This effect is causing newsrooms to change how they get their news to viewers.

“In this day and age of communication, (it’s) instantaneous gratification,” Imel said. “It’s why I started that Twitter account, because there is a way for people to know what’s going on right away.”

Imel said he understands that fewer people “stop by the mini mart to check on Friday night’s football scores” in the newspaper. He also said he understands that as members of the older generations die, they are losing subscribers.

“They (younger generations) don’t pick up a newspaper,” Imel said. “They’re on TikTok, they’re on Instagram, they’re on whatever platform is hot.”

Pricing of print influenced this decision as well. BGDN pays the United States Postal Service for expedited delivery of its newspapers. Imel said that the rate has been raised five times since BGDN first signed its contract with them in 2022. As the cost of print has risen over the past 10 years, they have not raised subscription prices for readers, Imel said.

“I wish it wasn’t that way because I enjoy keeping up with the local news,” said David Hutchinson, a resident of Bowling Green.

BGDN is accustomed to a changing news landscape. In 2022, BGDN removed its Saturday print following the switch from mail carriers to USPS. 

“You can’t find people to deliver papers anymore,” Imel said. “Nobody wants to do it.”

The company also made a major change in January 2019 when it shut down its press. Then in 2022, Carpenter Newsmedia LLC bought out BGDN, marking the first change in ownership in 140 years.

“We were running a 65-year-old press and a single paper when the Gaines’ owned it,” Imel said. “It really wasn’t economical to run. But now, because I run 10 papers, I can centralize all of that.”

Other notable Kentucky newspapers took similar steps within the past 5 years. The Lexington Herald Leader switched to three prints a week in 2024, and the Glasgow Daily Times decided to release its final print edition in 2020, shutting down in its entirety, due to the loss of revenue as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.

“Our workflow is to report, write, edit, publish, and that doesn’t change,” Imel said.