Rocky Mountain News is closing down

The Rocky Mountain News in Denver will close down its publication on Friday, making it one of several big-city newspapers that lost tens of millions of dollars in the last few years.

The owner of the newspaper, E.W. Scripps -- known locally as The Rocky, announced Thursday that it had failed to find a buyer for the daily.

The newspaper lost $16 million last year.

Scripps’s chief executive, Rich Boehne, said in a statement that The Rocky was “a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges.”

The Rocky has about 230 reporters, editors and other employees in its newsroom. It will close just two months short of its 150th anniversary.

Meanwhile, Hearst said last week that it was considering selling or closing The San Francisco Chronicle, and it plans to close The Seattle Post-Intelligencer if it finds no buyer for that paper.