The printed newspaper “Kozelshchynski Visti” (Poltava oblast) has closed down. The last issue was released on November 9. The newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Nadia Lytvyn, announced this on her Facebook page.

According to her, the main reason for the closure was lack of funding.

The editor-in-chief noted that the newspaper could not withstand the market tension, “the competition with its majesty the Internet and modern gadgets.”

“Today, producing a printed edition is a luxury that we cannot afford, it is too expensive a hobby. In order to feed ourselves, we must ensure a print rate of at least 5,000 copies – which is unrealistic given the current demographic situation in our community. Moreover, one copy of a newspaper should cost at least thirty hryvnias today – are you all ready to pay this much for a newspaper? I doubt it…” Lytvyn wrote.

She noted that the publication’s significant, if not the main, source of income used to be advertising. “Now the demand is effectively gone, and it’s understandable: there’s a war. And there won’t be any in the future, either, because wealthy advertisers usually choose high-circulation publications. With our current print rate of 800 copies, we look more than impoverished, no one will want to invest in putting advertisements in our newspaper,” she wrote.

According to Nadia Lytvyn, in order to publish a printed newspaper, you need at least four people on staff, provide them with a salary no lower than the minimum wage, pay all taxes, do office maintenance, and pay for the printing house’s services.

“For the last six months, the editors have been running on sheer enthusiasm. Last winter, we had to work in the cold (and even now we don’t heat our office to save money and electricity), with salary delays; but we tried (save for the one month and a half break we took at the beginning of the war) to publish new issues regularly, running solely on the donations from our caring friends from abroad and from local entrepreneurs,” she wrote.

Lytvyn added that now all donations have ceased and no more income is expected.

The newspaper’s last issue, released on November 9, was abridged, as they used the remainder of their funds to print it.

In a comment to IMI’s representative in Poltava, Nadiya Lytvyn said that the editorial office did not plan to keep the newspaper running either in print or online.

“Our team is no more. Someone found another job, someone retired. No plans. No other publication. An overall fatigue from constant struggle for survival. After the denationalization, we were able to rent out an office on preferential terms, which costs huge money, while the law prohibits subletting. That is, we have been deprived of a stable source of income. Then there was the Ukrposhta reform, which simply killed us. They no longer deliver newspapers to villages at all, and we work for the villages. Next: the complete lack of advertisers. And, finally, the demographics: there is no one to subscribe to the newspaper anymore, not enough for the print rate to amount to a decent income, at any rate. We cannot set a real price because people are insolvent. For them, paying 8 hryvnias for a newspaper is expensive, and the cost price is 30 hryvnias. What is there to talk about? So, no more newspaper,” said Nadia Lytvyn.