After months of rumors that it was suffering deep financial problems, the Israeli afternoon tabloid Hadashot has folded.
The daily newspaper’s 40 editorial staff members and managers learned by telephone early Monday that they need not report for work, as the paper had just published its last issue.
The paper’s present losses are said to exceed $30 million.
Hadashot, which means news, was established 10 years ago by the Ha’aretz publishing company, which publishes the prestigious Ha’aretz daily broadsheet newspaper and several weekly publications.
The tabloid, established by publisher Amos Schocken, had been positioned to compete with the popular Yediot Achronot and Ma’ariv afternoon newspapers.
But its youthful staff and dovish slant failed to attract a substantial segment of the public, and its circulation peaked at about 30,000.
“We did not succeed in increasing circulation, and it did not seem justified to us to employ talented journalists on a newspaper that the marketplace did not appreciate,” said Schocken.
In fact, the paper reportedly was losing money from the day it put out its first edition a decade ago.
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