Beginning Saturday, The Messenger is launching a new weekend edition of the newspaper.

The edition will be distributed on Saturday mornings via home delivery, mail delivery and racks and will include all the features normally found in Sunday editions.

“This expanded edition will include all the best of our Sunday edition, along with expanded sports coverage during football season, expanded news and feature coverage and the opportunity to better preview and highlight weekend activities,” said Publisher Stacy Graning.

The switch to a weekend edition comes as part of an effort to improve customer service and provide better news coverage. “We realized that many of our readers who receive their Messenger via mail delivery had to wait until Monday or Tuesday to receive their Sunday papers,” Graning said. “By switching to a weekend edition, they will receive their papers on Saturday, with the normal mail delivery.”

Moreover, she added, the weekend edition will feature more timely coverage of Friday night football games and activities during football season. “We’ve been publishing live coverage of the games on our Web site on Friday nights. Now, football players and fans can pick up their hometown newspaper on Saturday mornings and read the games. We’re also planning a Sunday extra edition during football season, focusing on college football and Troy University.”

Of course, football and sports are only part of the impetus for the change. Thanks to the opportunities provided by the online edition of The Messenger (www.troymessenger.com), the staff will be able to provide live coverage of Saturday and Sunday events throughout the weekend on the Web site. “We’ll cover all the weekend activities live through stories and photos on our website and our related photo gallery site, www.picturepike.com,” Graning said. “Together, we’ll use the print and online editions to tell the stories of Pike County, its people and its events as they happen.”

The expanded weekend edition will continue to sell for only $1 in racks and home delivery subscribers will see no changes in their rates.