Kamloops This Week will shut down Wednesday after 35 years

On Wednesday, the final edition of Kamloops This Week will be delivered.

The newspaper and website will then shut down after 35 years of serving the Kamloops community, leaving the city without a newspaper for the first time since 1884.

Robert Doull, president of Aberdeen Publishing, the company that owns the publication, said last week that the closure is due to several issues outside of their control.

“Our paper costs have increased,” he explained. “Our printer went out of business with 10 days’ notice and the sole available replacement is only able to give us a smaller page size at a higher price.”

Another major and unsurprising factor is the Online News Act, passed earlier this year in Canada, which has resulted in Meta and Google blocking news links online.

That, combined with the fact that lease rates for office space continue to rise, has put many publications like Kamloops This Week in a difficult financial spot and at risk of shutting down.

“To operate our business, we need a stable revenue base and controllable costs so that we can commit to providing forward advertising contracts with certainty,” Doull said.

“The cost of half of our equation no longer makes sense and we don’t see any way to solve it. The newspaper has simply come to the end of its business life.”

Doull noted that there was initially hope for Kamloops This Week to continue as a non-profit enterprise, but that proved to be a difficult, lengthy and all-around unrealistic process.

Since its inception in 1988, Kamloops This Week has been the recipient of many journalism awards and was even named a finalist of the Michener Award, Canada’s highest journalism honour, in 2022.

The newsroom has been hard at work planning Wednesday's final edition, which is expected to feature many memories of the past 35 years along with some thoughts from staff, readers and advertisers.