Oct 6
2025
The beginning of the end of the Buffalo News’ print edition
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The Buffalo News announced Friday that it will stop printing a Monday edition starting Nov. 3. It’s part of an industry trend, with some dailies publishing print editions as infrequently as three days a week.
The News’ print circulation continues to spiral downward. Paid circulation has dwindled to an average of 23,792 according to the annual publisher’s statement filed in June with the United States Postal Service. Digital subscriptions were 67,430.
The numbers pale in comparison with peak print circulation in the 1990s of over 300,000 daily and 400,000 on Sundays.
Why eliminate the Monday edition? It’s one of the weaker days for single copy sales at honor boxes and retail outlets.
Mondays used to be a winner during the Bills’ Superbowl days, with a victory generating the sale of up to 50,000 additional papers. But because of early deadlines necessitated by printing the paper in Cleveland, print readers now have to wait until Tuesday’s paper for game coverage.
I don’t expect the paper’s print edition to cease any time soon. But further shrinkage is inevitable given reader habits. I envision a day when The News, and most other dailies, publish a print edition only on Sunday, the edition that attracts the most readers and generates the most revenue.
The News story announcing the elimination of the Monday edition did not mention a reduction in price for home subscribers. This is in keeping with the paper’s strategy of giving readers less and charging them more. Last July the paper announced a $4.99 a month surcharge for print subscribers to cover increased costs due to inflation and tariffs.
As I previously reported, The News, at the insistence of its chain owner, Lee Enterprises, is cutting its newsroom staff by five more journalists and dropping stories provided by The New York Times.
Terry Pegula is making a killing off the Bills. There’s the guaranteed annual profits, driven by the NFL’s rich television rights deal. There’s also the growth in the team’s value, which has jumped from the $1.4 billion he paid for the team to today’s current estimated value of $6 billion.
The Bills profits are also being driven by some of the highest ticket and concession prices in the NFL, as reported by The Buffalo News.
A family of four attending a Bills game at Highmark Stadium spends an average of over $1,720, which is around $380 more than the NFL average and the fifth most expensive to attend of the league’s 32 teams.
Next season you can add the cost of a personal seat license.
It’s good news that the Sabres have agreed to a five-year extension on the team’s lease on the downtown arena. But, as Reinvent Albany points out, don’t think it’s for altruistic purposes.
There have been “initial conversations” about a longer lease extension that would include “much-needed renovations at the almost 30-year-old downtown arena,” but those “aren’t expected to heat up until construction on the Buffalo Bills’ new stadium is complete.”
The Pegulas, in other words, are taking up so much government time and energy — and cash — with the stadium Gov. Hochul arranged for their football team that they need to wait until the time is more ripe to ask for a similar deal for their hockey team. The deadline for extending their lease by five years was this week, so they’ve effectively kicked the can down the road to the end of this decade, when the public purse strings may be loosened again.
The Pegulas should pony up for the improvements, especially given that the team’s value has skyrocketed. They bought the team in 2011 for $189 million. The team’s estimated value has increased by 20 percent in the last year alone – the 14th consecutive season it missed the playoffs – and now stands at $1.36 billion.
Pegula and other professional sports team owners are adept at getting politicians to subsidize their stadium and arena deals. Among the reasons: Many of them are generous contributors to political campaigns, as documented by Open Secrets, which analyzed donations made by NFL team owners.
The NFL generated $23 billion in revenue in 2024, nearing Commissioner Roger Goodell’s goal of $25 billion by 2027. This goal, set in 2010 when NFL revenue just crossed $8 billion, has been kept on course by a slew of ever-increasing media rights deals and partnerships.
And like any successful industry, the league (and team owners) apply some of those earnings toward political influence. For example, in recent years the league pushed for improved access to life-saving medical equipment, paved the way for new stadiums and ensured that facilities are protected from possible drone threats.
During the 2024 election cycle, 58 percent of federal campaign contributions made by an NFL-affiliated political action committee and league employees went to Democrats.
Pegula gives mostly to Republicans, by the way.
Team owners like Pegula aren’t the only ones making a killing off events. The Buffalo News reported on concession prices at local sport and entertainment venues. How about $18 for a beer and $12 for a hot dog – most likely a lousy one at that.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomKen Kruly, in his Politics and Other Stuff, speculates that the proposal to cap a portion of the Kensington Expressway is about to hit a dead end.
It seems that the Kensington project is coming to the end of the road. Might the environmental impact statement work determine ways to mitigate the health hazards that the highway creates? Might some alternative approaches to the problem bring all elements of the community together for something that is doable and worth pursuing? It is worth a try.
RIP, Marlies Wesolowski, former member and chair of the Buffalo Board of Education and executive director of the Lt. Col. Matt Urban Human Services Center of Western New York. I covered Marlies for a portion of her nine-year tenure on the School Board. More than any elected official I ever covered, Marlies never abandoned the good intentions that prompted her to run for office in the first place. A caring, principled person and a good soul.
