ATLANTA, newsvine.com - Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:18 PM EST

In mid-March, the newspaper's Tuesday-Saturday Business section will merge with an expanded A section. The Sunday section will remain a stand-alone.

Three Sunday feature sections — Living & Style, Arts & Leisure, and Travel — will be combined into one, while the current TV Week supplement will be replaced with a stand-alone, full-color TV section.

In an open letter published in Sunday's editions, Publisher Doug Franklin said the changes were aimed at "balancing our financial needs against what we have learned about what you, our readers, value most."

Franklin said the newspaper already has cut staff, frozen pay and retreated from delivering newspapers to costlier areas.

He also thanked readers for their continued support and said the Journal-Constitution will introduce a redesign in May to make "the newspaper easier and more enjoyable to read."

Scores of other papers have been combining sections in recent months to help reduce production costs.

The Los Angeles Times said last month it will shrink the number of daily sections to four from five, effective March 2. The Washington Post this month ended regular publication of its weekly Book World section on Sundays, folding book reviews into its Style and Outlook sections.

The New York Times in October folded the metro section in the paper's main news section from Monday to Saturday, and combined the business and sports sections on Tuesday to Friday. That lets the Times slash labor and other costs by requiring just one press run rather than two on most nights.