He thought that all metropolitan papers still hewed to the single-column, so-called tombstone style presentation of both news and advertisements.

Like most big metropolitan papers, it was hit with sharply rising newsprint costs this year as it struggled with increasing competition for advertiser dollars and readers.

It was always considered a metropolitan paper and focused most of its coverage on city issues.

No competing metropolitan paper had been successfully started in decades, and Mr. Ingersoll was regarded as reckless by many analysts for embarking on the venture.

It just didn't feel like I was reading a metropolitan paper.

"But if you can sell space in five 40,000 regionals, then the advertisers start to treat you like a 200,000-circulation metropolitan paper."

In print, the big metropolitan papers and the three newsweeklies dominated things, largely to the exclusion of other players.

The papers, with their easy-to-read format, have helped cut into the print circulation of larger metropolitan papers.

She said that she learned the language of this country and "its ways" by reading a daily metropolitan paper.

Supermarkets and department stores had concentrated on the wider circulation of the metropolitan papers.