Guyana Stabroek News closes after thirty-nine years

After nearly four decades on newsstands, Guyana Stabroek News will publish its final print edition on March 15, bringing to a close one of Guyana’s longest running privately owned newspapers.

The announcement was made last Friday by its publisher, Guyana Publications Inc, which has initiated voluntary liquidation proceedings. Editor in Chief Anand Persaud said a combination of shrinking circulation, declining advertising revenue and shifts in media consumption had made continued operations unsustainable after 39 years.

At its height, the newspaper sold 40,000 copies on Sundays and 18,000 on weekdays. That figure has fallen sharply to between 4,000 and 5,000 copies. “Everybody in the newspaper world has fallen. They’re all grappling with that, too so it is a fact of life,” Persaud told reporters.

He emphasized that the company remains solvent and will meet its obligations to approximately 60 employees. “The newspaper is solvent, is in a position to meet all of its obligations to staff in terms of severance and in terms of unpaid leave and in terms of other things,” he said, noting that workers would also receive funds from a contributory pension scheme.

Persaud described the collapse of the advertising market as a critical factor. Major corporate advertisers, including Digicel, One Communications, Banks DIH, Demerara Distillers Limited and Courts, have gradually shifted spending to online platforms. The paper was left largely dependent on statutory state advertising, periodic financial notices from banks and legal announcements.

He acknowledged that some advertisers may have been reluctant to be associated with the publication for political reasons, though he said the broader issue was technological change. Readers increasingly turn to mobile phones for real time updates, leaving print editions, which arrive 24 hours later, struggling to compete.

In a statement, two principal shareholders disclosed that the state run Department of Public Information had accumulated more than GUY$80,000,000 in unpaid advertising bills over the past year. “The debt persists despite repeated private and public entreaties to clear it,” they said, adding that publishing in Guyana and the wider Caribbean has always been constrained by small readership markets.

Persaud rejected suggestions that geopolitics played a decisive role. “It has very little to do with how geopolitics might have affected that market,” he said. “Very few people go to buy a newspaper in the morning anymore.”

He said management explored hybrid print and digital models over the past five years, but online revenues proved too uncertain to guarantee stability. “We want to leave on our feet rather than live on our knees,” Persaud said, calling on other media outlets to continue the watchdog role the paper performed since 1986.