The Bar Harbor Times, Capital Weekly, VillageSoup Gazette, VillageSoup Journal and the Scene are no more.
The owner of the Village NetMedia publications, Richard M. Anderson, announced on company websites this evening that the newspapers would shut down immediately, putting 56 employees out of work. Anderson said the company would “cease operation beyond that which is necessary to complete the closure process.”
Anderson attributed the sudden closure to a failure to restructure the company’s financial condition.
“The profound changes in the newspaper publishing business, a weak economy and our investment in new products created severe financial challenges,” he wrote. “Over the recent months, I have worked with outside professionals to achieve a financial restructuring that would allow us to continue. These efforts failed as of 3 p.m. today, March 9, 2012. We can no longer sustain our operations.”
Anderson said he was confident “that others will step forward and replace the loss of professional journalism and community service previously provided by our publications.”
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