The Blade, which has a rich history of publishing, will move further into the digital publishing era by dropping two more days of its printed newspaper in favor of e-delivery.

Beginning this week, printing and delivery of a printed paper will end on Fridays and Saturdays, said Allan Block, chairman of Block Communications, Inc., the parent company of The Blade. The move will result in the newspaper publishing a print edition on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, after the paper in February, 2019, ceased print publications on Monday and Tuesday.

“Print is old-fashioned delivery. It’s an approach suitable for text and picture information. But it is going away and it’s probably going to go away very fast,” said Mr. Block, whose company owns both The Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The chairman said readers should not mourn the loss of printed editions.

The newspaper continues to produce the eBlade, which is a complete daily digital broadsheet newspaper available seven days a week. Blade news reports also are available on toledoblade.com and via The Blade NewsSlide app.

“The eBlade edition is better than print. It delivers to your iPad or Android tablet easily. It navigates better,” Mr. Block said. “It’s not geographically restricted, that is, you can go anywhere [out of The Blade’s circulation area] and still receive it.”

Also, Mr. Block said, getting the news digitally is better for the environment.

“It’s green. It doesn’t involve carbon emissions. It doesn’t waste paper. It doesn’t use ink. It’s totally green,” he said. “We also have NewsSlide, which is a different way to deliver the news. It represents a new media that combines print, video, graphics, and the Internet.

“At the end of the day, I don’t apologize for killing a day of print where there isn’t enough advertising revenue to pay for it anymore. I didn’t cause the demise of print. It’s a fact of the business environment we now face,” he said.

But, “The good news is we are a leader in delivery of news using the new digital formats. I don’t think anyone has better delivery than us,” the chairman said.

And, if readers really want a printed paper, they can still have it using the current technology.

“On the days we don’t print, if you own one of the modern printers you can print a very good example of the printed paper. For $150, you can buy a printer and you can print a beautiful print version. You can still have your printed paper,” Mr. Block said.

“But you should use an iPad. You get the full experience with an iPad. If someone says the paper doesn’t exist on those days we don’t print, that’s wrong. We do. We exist digitally,” he added.

Mr. Block said eventually all newspapers are going to be distributed by e-delivery seven days a week.

“The key to e-delivery is how well it works. I believe that we are good enough. I believe what we’ve done is outstanding,” the chairman said.

But e-delivery hasn’t saved the newspaper industry just yet, he added.

“Sometimes things take a while to get accepted. Sometimes a breakthrough has to wait its time, to find its place and acceptance. I believe the newspaper this year is at that day of reckoning,” Mr. Block said.

“Print is going away but we have something better, and therefore we offer no apology,” he said.

“We urge people to buy a tablet and give us a try,” he added.

First Published March 8, 2020, 5:00 a.m.