The Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung, one of the oldest newspapers in the world, printed its final edition on Friday after 320 years of activity.
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The final edition’s cover read: "116,840 days, 320 years, 12 Austrian presidents, 10 emperors, two republics, and one newspaper." The newspaper's activities will continue online, and the team aims to print one edition per month in the future.
Wiener Zeitung is one of the oldest newspapers in the world and the only one among them that was a daily newspaper distributed nationally.
The newspaper’s first edition, originally called Wienerisches Diarium, was published on August 8, 1703.
In addition to domestic and international news, the newspaper also covered other topics, including culture. In 1768, the newspaper informed its readers about a concert featuring a "remarkable talent, age 12" - that was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Its final edition published an interview with a world-renowned Austrian, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Since 1857, Wiener Zeitung has been owned by the Austrian government. Its editors have enjoyed editorial freedom over the years, but the newspaper's main source of income came from being the government’s official gazette.
The suspension of its print edition came following a law passed in Austria in April, which abolished the requirement for advertisers to pay for newspaper ads. Due to a sharp decline in revenue, the newspaper had to lay off 63 employees and reduce the number of its editors and journalists from 55 to 20.
In the paper’s final editorial article, the editors noted that the law passed in April was the reason for ending the newspaper’s print edition.
"These are turbulent days for quality journalism. In more and more platforms, quality content is competing for attention with fake news, cat videos and conspiracy theories," the article read.