Costs & the Commercial

After an 81-year chase, the hard facts of economics caught up with another paper. In Bangor, Maine, Publisher James D. Ewing, son of former Federal Security Administrator Oscar R. Ewing, announced last week that the evening (circ. 7,058) and Sunday (circ. 21,004) Commercial was suspending publication immediately.

Ewing, who bought the Commercial in 1946 with veteran Newsman Russell H.

Peters (Omaha Bee-News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer), spruced up the Commercial with features and syndicated columnists and sounded an independent, liberal voice in the conservative woods of Maine journalism. He boosted circulation but still lost money. For his 100 employees last week, Ewing listed the troubles: "The industry-wide problem of steadily rising operating costs; the [unhappy] economic picture in northern and eastern Maine; the [lack of] local advertising."

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