The Globe and Mail will no longer deliver its print editions to Atlantic Canada as of the end of November.

The decision to end print distribution in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia follows a move to stop delivering physical papers to Newfoundland in 2013.

Phillip Crawley, publisher and CEO at the Globe, said this week’s decision was made for the same reason as the one in 2013 – it no longer makes financial sense to deliver a print version to the area as demand drops.

The Globe and Mail has approximately 5,000 print subscribers on weekdays in Atlantic Canada, with that number jumping to about 10,000 on the weekend, according to numbers cited by Crawley. Online, the Globe sees about 500,000 unique visitors a month from the Atlantic provinces.

Crawley said the Atlantic region has been one of the most expensive areas to distribute the print paper for the Globe, which delivers papers from a plant in Halifax to the region. Atlantic print delivery has been subsidized by about a million dollars a year as readership has declined.

However, he said that this week’s announcement doesn’t mean the Globe is scaling back on print overall.

“We very much believe that print has a long future for us,” he said. “But increasingly, it’s the big urban centres that make the most sense to us. Sending a few copies to the end of a long road gets more expensive every year. We are a paid content business, and I would rather spend the money on high quality journalism.”

The Globe and Mail subscribers in Atlantic Canada will be offered discounts on digital products, said Crawley. He also noted the Globe recently hired Jessica Leeder as Atlantic Canada bureau chief, filing a post that had been vacant for over a year. Leeder will be based in Halifax.

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