the name for the paper's arts and entertainment section, as well as the nameplate for a free edition of the Phoenix distributed on college campuses in Boston. In the conflicts between writers and management, ousted writers immediately started another weekly, The Real Paper (which began August 2, 1972, and continued until 1981), while management continued the Boston Phoenix. In 1988, the company that owned the Phoenix, Phoenix Media/Communications Group, bought a similar publication in neighboring Providence, Rhode Island, called The NewPaper, which had been founded in 1978 by Providence Journal columnist Ty Davis. It continued under the NewPaper name until 1993, when it became the Providence Phoenix. In 1999, PM/CG branched out into Portland, Maine, by creating the Portland Phoenix. That same year the nameplate changed from Phoenix B.A.D. to The Boston Phoenix. From 1992 through 2000, there was also a Worcester Phoenix, but it folded due to Worcester's dwindling arts market. In 2005, the Phoenix underwent a major redesign, switching from a broadsheet/Berliner format to a tabloid format and introduced a new logo in order to increase its appeal to younger readers. Towards the end of its existence, The Phoenix had a weekly circulation of 253,000, and its website featured 90% of the paper's content, as well as extra content not included in the paper. Mergers, closures and ownership change On August 1, 2012, it was announced that Stuff Magazine and the Boston Phoenix newspaper would merge and the result would be a weekly magazine to be called The Phoenix, to debut in the fall of 2012. The first issue of the new, glossy-paper Phoenix had a cover date of September 21, 2012. On March 14, 2013, the publisher announced that the Boston Phoenix would fold effective as of the March 15, 2013, print edition, though the Portland and Providence papers would be unaffected. In October 2014, The Phoenix announced that their Providence paper would also cease publication, with last issue being the October 17 issue. The Boston Phoenix published its last issue on March 14, 2013. A statement from publisher Mindich in that issue blamed the 2007 financial crisis and changes in the media business, particularly the downturn in print advertising revenue, as the reasons for the closing. In November 2014, Mindich sold the Portland Phoenix to the Portland News Club LLC, publishers of The Portland Daily Sun. Although the Daily Sun would cease publication one month later,