MONTREAL — Quebecor, the owners of The Montreal Mirror, have announced that the free alternative weekly would close its doors immediately.

After 27 years, Quebecor blamed the closure of the free weekly on economic conditions.

"The growing popularity of digital media and communications has irremediably changed the context in which free cultural weeklies operate, bringing about economic challenges which have unfortunately compromised The Mirror's viability," wrote Quebecor in a statement.

Two of the paper's nine employees will be retained within the Quebecor fold, while the other seven have been cast loose.

"I'm not surprised," said co-founder Daniel Sanger, who now works with Projet Montreal. "I thought it would take a couple of more years before they pulled the plug. With (former competitor) Hour so recently gone, I thought that would mean there would be a bit of room for them."

Others felt that the loss of the paper will be a blow to Montreal culture.

"I just feel for people that I know who work there," said reader Steve Guimond. "It's a sad day for Montreal, particularly Anglophones."

One of his acquaintances suggested that someone should attempt to jump into the breach with a new print offering.

"Print is important," said Blake Hargreaves. "People respond to print differently and it's necessary, something will have to replace it or take its place."

The Quebecor media giant, controlled by CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau, purchased the paper in 1996 from an ownership group which consisted of Eyal Kattan and Catherine Salisbury. The two had started the paper alongside other local journalists including Brendan Kelly, Julien Feldman and Daniel Sanger. The latter two fought a long-lasting lawsuit for a piece of ownership after the sale, which was eventually settled out of court.

With the departure of editor Peter Scowen, the paper moved from a more politically-correct approach around 1993 to embrace an irrelevant, laddish attitude, one which helped attract many eye-catching ads for escort agencies, for which the paper became long known.

In 1997 the Association of Alternative Newsmedia considered expelling the Mirror due to its new corporate ownership, but eventually allowed the paper to stay. Insiders note that the corporate francophone publishing giant did not always appear to be on the same page as its upstart English weekly, which fought hard to maintain its voice.

In recent years the paper had suffered a downturn in ad revenues, which led to pressure to cut editorial content to its veteran staff, many of whom had been working there for over a decade and longer.

The paper's once-busy news section was slashed as ads dried up and the page count dwindled, in spite of popular columns such as Chris Barry's People.

After the Mirror's longtime competitor Hour was shut down in May, there are now no survivors in the once-booming English alt-weekly newspaper market.

Sun Media, owner of Quebecor, publishes 15.1 million papers each week, including 36 paid dailies, six free dailies and 200 regional and specialized publications.