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By Ross Marowits

MONTREAL — Another alarm bell sounded Wednesday for the future of print newspapers in Canada when one of the country’s largest and oldest dailies announced the end of its printed weekday edition nearly three years after introducing its free digital tablet edition.

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Montreal La Presse, owned by Power Corp., announced Wednesday that the print edition of the 131-year-old French-language paper will only be available on Saturdays after Jan. 1.

Publisher Guy Crevier says the paper will become the world’s first major daily to go completely digital on weekdays as it responds to a permanent shift in advertising spending.

The North American newspaper sector has lost 63 per cent of its revenues — or $29 billion — over the past decade, Crevier said in an interview.

“There is nobody who can survive in an environment like that,” he said.

His newspaper’s digital edition — called La Presse+ — is more successful than the print edition just 30 months after it was introduced.