The City Paper, a Monday-Friday print and Web publication launched in Nashville 13 years ago, will cease publication on Aug. 9.

The publication was created two years after the closing of the Nashville Banner, the city’s afternoon daily newspaper, which ended its 122-year run in 1998.

Chris Ferrell, CEO of SouthComm, announced the closing to staff this morning, according to the newspaper’s website.

"In the last few days, we made the difficult decision to stop publishing The City Paper," Ferrell said. "After years of being subsidized by our investors and other Southcomm publications, we finally determined that there was not enough advertiser support for the free newsweekly model we were trying to sustain. The model proved very popular with readers, but in publishing the revenue doesn't necessarily follow the readership.

"Going forward we will be merging some of our editorial resources into our profitable publications in Nashville in an effort to make them even stronger," Ferrell said. "You will see some of the names you have grown familiar with in The City Paper in the masthead of the Nashville Scene and Nashville Post. Both publications will expand their news coverage to fill the gap left by the closing of The City Paper. David Boclair will continue his coverage of Nashville sports, for example."

SouthComm, purchased the publication in 2008.