By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

Gay People’s Chronicle, a weekly GLBT community newspaper based in Cleveland and distributed throughout Ohio, is cutting back to biweekly production to cope with declining ad revenues.

The newspaper began in 1985 and had been published weekly since 1998. But in a story explaining the change, officials at GPN said cutting its print bill in half was necessary.

“(W)ith a worsening economy and lowering advertising revenues, concerns about the feasibility of publishing 52 issues a year arose,” the article stated. “A careful examination of the finances revealed that much—but not all—of the fiscal shortfall can be ameliorated by publishing every other week, and that appears to be among the solutions.”

The move, the paper reported, “puts the Gay People’s Chronicle on firmer footing than it has been for years.”

The article added that GPN’s staff voluntarily worked without pay in July because of the paper’s financial woes.

Like daily newspapers and alternative weeklies, many GLBT community newspapers are dealing with a tougher advertising market this year in the wake of the country’s economic slowdown. Especially hard-hit publications include those that have been heavily dependent on specific types of ads, such as classifieds, auto and real estate, as the number of those ads have dropped precipitously. Newspapers suffering financial difficulties have coped in various ways, with some cutting content and page counts and others slashing distribution, closing offices and/or trimming staff.