The Saturday afternoon edition of the Pennsylvania newspaper Lancaster New Era, will end publication next year.

Lancaster Newspapers Inc. said a combined Saturday morning edition of the New Era and the Intelligencer Journal will replace the individual Saturday Lancaster New Era.

The move to combine the two should be effective at the end of the first quarter of 2008, said Harold Miller, the company's president and chief executive.

The combined Saturday edition will cover all the existing features now in the Saturday Intelligencer Journal, as well as a New Era editorial page and comics.

Some of the New Era staff is being cut in order to fit the paper's new five-day publication cycle, but the company said that will “come almost entirely from attrition and early retirements,” Editor & Publisher reported.

“We anticipate there will be a very slight reduction in the end of the five-month period,'” Miller said.