MLive Media Group on Wednesday announced it will shift its news product entirely to digital, ending its physical newspapers across eight local news brands.
The state’s largest media company said Dec. 6, 2026 will be the final print copies of The Flint Journal, The Ann Arbor News, The Bay City Times, The Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle and The Saginaw News.
MLive leaders said it will continue its reporting online and end its contract with people who get the newspaper delivered. It’s a sign of the changing media environment as leaders say the amount of online subscribers surpassed its physical product.
“Our mission has always been about excellent journalism that serves our communities, and the people who live in Michigan,” Kelly Adrian Frick, vice president of content for MLive Media Group. “Not printing newspapers doesn’t change that for the journalists at MLive. We will continue to bring our reporting where our readers want it most.”
Frick said the change will not affect MLive’s staff of roughly 100 journalists.
MLive has 8 million-plus monthly visits to its website, making it the No. 1 most-read outlet in Michigan and the fourth-most read local news provider in the United States, according to Nieman Journalism Lab.
MLive is owned by New York-based Advance Local, which consolidated its Michigan newspaper titles and its internet company, MLive.com, in 2012. The shift from truly local newsrooms independent of one another to regional signaled the shift of the news industry at the time. MLive Media Group says it embraced a digital-first culture since its launch 14 years ago.
“Once my dad started reading the online newspaper, I realized that the world is always changing and it’s up to us to keep up with those changes,” Frick said.
MLive president John Hiner in a statement suggested just 1% of the readership favored its print product over the company’s online presence.
Former MLive reporter Aya Miller left the company the week of the announcement to pursue her reporting independently via her popular TikTok account. Miller said the loss of the newspapers is a mark of how people consume news.
“One of the reasons I wanted to get into journalism is seeing print newspapers,” Miller said. “The idea of working in a newsroom and having your name on a newspaper.”
“I think my first byline was a story I wrote with Julie Mack about Western Michigan University,” she said. “I didn’t know it was going to be in the paper, but they told me my story was on the front page. I went to the grocery store and bought like four or five copies, it was so exciting.”
Miller said it’s tough to know how many residents still read the physical newspaper, but said there was a nostalgia factor.