The Houston Press is an online newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown area. It was also a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported entirely by advertising revenue and is free to readers. It reports a monthly readership of 1.6 million online users. Prior to the 2017 cessation of the print edition, the Press was found in restaurants, coffee houses, and local retail stores. New weekly editions were distributed on Thursdays. History The alt-weekly Houston Press was founded in 1989 by John Wilburn, Chris Hearne (founder of Austin's Third Coast Magazine) and Kirk Cypel (a Vice President of a Houston-based investment group) conceived of this news and entertainment weekly after rejecting a business plan to relaunch Texas Business Magazine. Hearne and John Wilburn, who previously managed the Sunday magazine of the Dallas Morning News, jointly established the magazine. Hearne was the paper's first publisher and Cypel served as the organization's business advisor. Although the paper faced early challenges, the landscape changed when Hearne and Cypel engineered a buyout of 713 Magazine, a key competitor. Once in control of 713, they stopped its publication and converted advertisers to the Houston Press. Thereafter, the Houston Presss advertising and circulation grew dramatically. Prior to the establishment of the Houston Press, the city did not have a major alternative weekly publication. Its original cover story was about the election of the Mayor of Houston. For the newspaper's first five years, Niel Morgan served as the investor, and therefore the owner; Morgan was a real estate developer. Due to Wilburn's desire to get mainstream advertising, he chose not to run sexually-oriented advertising. After Wilburn and Morgan found themselves disagreeing over aspects of the paper, Wilburn quit. In the period before 1993 the Houston Press experienced financial difficulties. That year Morgan sold the paper, to New Times Media. Sexually-oriented advertising appeared after the sale. The paper's fortunes improved due to the dot-com bubble of 1997-2001 and the increase in advertising; it was one of the first alternative weeklies in the United States to establish a website. In 1998 Houston Press acquired the assets of an alternative paper, Public News, that was ceasing operations. Employees of Public News' sales department began working for the Houston Press. That year Margaret Downing became the primary editor. There were 23 reporters and editors in 1998. Michael Hardy stated in the