Valley Advocate: The Alt-Weekly That Wasn't, But Will Be Soon

The Valley Advocate will again be published weekly, a year after its parent company cut back print production to every two weeks.

"It was purely financial," Michael Moses, VP of sales and marketing at Newspapers of New England, said of the decision last year.

Then, over the summer, the Advocate saw its staff reduced, with editor Dave Eisenstadter reassigned.

Moses, who wasn't with the company when the Advocate cut production, said the thought was they could still serve the market as a biweekly arts and entertainment paper, and make enough money to support it.

It didn't work. Interest in the paper dropped, Moses said, with a decline in online readership and advertising revenue.

"The reality was that the Advocate properly sourced, really it's best opportunity for success is weekly, because that drives the most engagement, and it's when the market is looking for it," Moses said. 

So starting in March, that's what they're doing. They're also bringing back Eisenstadter and boosting the ad staff. 

It's a rare case these days of a news publication reinvesting in print.