This week for the first time in nearly 150 years, people living in Denver can't pick up a copy of "The Rocky Mountain News."

Citing millions in losses and unable to find a buyer, its parent company Scripps-Howard closed the operation down.

Metropolitan newspapers across the country are facing similar situations. The "San Francisco Chronicle" is for sale and in danger of closing. Philadelphia's papers are in bankruptcy. Newspapers in Seattle and Tucson are also on the brink of shutting down.

Its a new age and papers are struggling to find ways to adapt.

"The cost structures on metros are so enormous," said Andy Kniceley, publisher of the "Times West Virginian." "Typically we're all facing struggles with the rising cost of newsprint. The rising cost of distribution. You know, the Postal Service is talking about cutting back days. Well, we drive by every home basically seven days a week."

In addition to publishing the Fairmont paper, Kniceley is the Vice President of dailies for the West Virginia Press Association. He says Mountain State newspapers may have an advantage over their big-city counterparts.

"Those metro papers have relied on state, nation and world news that's become a commodity on the internet," Kniceley said. "My news, my local news, my Marion County franchise is not a commodity. We control how we disseminate that news. So we make sure that the decisions we make...what we put on our free site and what we put on our E-Edition are two different things."

An audit of more than 500 newspapers across the country shows weekday and Sunday circulation down nearly five percent from a year earlier. Internet revenue is flat and print ad revenue saw its second straight year of decline.

Observers say newspapers must find new and profitable ways to get their content to readers.

"If I owned a newspaper I'd be paying as much attention to my online delivery as I could," said Charles Ryan, Dean of the University of Charleston Graduate School of Business. "If I owned a newspaper I think I'd go out and hire the best tv producer I can find because I'm dealing with a visual medium now. And I'm taking my content, which hopefully is a high-quality journalistic content, and I'm presenting it on a different stage. Then there's the question of how do I get people to pay me for that?"

Of the country's top 25 dailies, only "USA Today" and the "Wall Street Journal" grew their circulation from 2007 to 2008.

"If you're in the newspaper business you're going to do everything you can to make it successful because you have equity in it," Ryan said. "But you have to have the understanding that the playing field is changing dramatically and changing every day. The method of delivery is what it's all about."

While the numbers are discouraging, Ryan says newspapers offering valuable content should find a way to survive.

"I don't know that we can sit around and bemoan and say newspapers are dying," Ryan said. "I mean, more people are reading news now than ever before. And that's a good thing. Again, it just the delivery method is different. Everyone is coping with the business model how do you make a profit by being a news gathering organization. If you can't make a profit then they will die. But I would say to you that we are inherently not going to let that happen because we want our news."