Ma’ariv’s Daily Print Version Comes to an End

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maarivIn another sign of the digital age, the Hebrew daily Ma’ariv newspaper will no longer appear in print and will only be released in digital form. The Friday weekend edition will continue to be published and will be expanded.

As part of this move, Ma’ariv will be putting up the A. Levin Epstein Ltd. printing house, which it owns, for sale, and the weekend edition will be printed at a different printing house, Matzav.com Israel has learned.

This Wednesday, Ma’ariv is scheduled to meet with reps of the Association of Israeli Journalists in Labor Court for a hearing on an injunction against the firing of a large number of the newspaper’s employees.

Founded in 1948, the year of Israel’s founding, Ma’ariv was established by journalists who jumped ship from Yediot Achronot.

Maariv is currently second in sales after Yediot and third in readership after Yediot and Yisrael Hayom.

Maariv’s editor in chief is Yoav Tzur, who succeeded Doron Galezer and Ruth Yuval who quit in protest of continued budget cutbacks.

Apart from the daily newspaper and its supplements, the Maariv media group  has a chain of local newspapers with a national scale distribution, a magazines division, and a semi-independent website called NRG, which includes much of the print content.

For many years, the Nimrodi family held a controlling stake in Maariv and Yaakov Nimrodi served as its chairman. In March 2010, Zaki Rakib bought a 50% share from Israel Land Development Company and Ofer Nimrodi, bringing new energy and much needed cash infusion to the newspaper which had been losing millions of shekels a year since 2004. Rakib became the new chairman. However, it was announced in March 2011 that Nochi Dankner was to take control of Ma’ariv through his Discount Investment.

With stiffer competition, Ma’ariv has scrapped its daily print edition.

{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}


5 COMMENTS

  1. The demise of any newspaper is a tragedy, because newspapers, whether we agree or disagree with teir policies are vehicles of information. News items help us to keep pace with what is happening around us and in the world beyond, and features help to enhance our informal education. The tragedy with Maariv is that it was taken over by a series of businessmen who were not newsmen, whereas Haaretz for instance, is controlled by a third generation publisher and journalist, as is Yediot Aharonot.
    It makes a great difference in the survival of a newspaper.

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