WASHINGTON, USA - THE Christian Science Monitor on Tuesday announced plans to end its daily print edition next year and become the first national US newspaper to adopt an almost entirely Internet-based strategy.

The 100-year-old newspaper, which like other US dailies has been losing readership and advertising revenue to online media for years, said it would drop its daily print edition from April 2009.

It said it will continue to offer subscribers weekly print and daily email editions but the changes are designed to turn the award-winning paper into 'an online publication that is updated continuously each day.'

Monitor editor John Yemma said 'a modest reduction' in the paper's 95-person editorial staff was likely once the moves are completed.

'Looking forward, the Monitor's web readership clearly shows promise,' Ms Judy Wolff, chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society, told the paper.

'We plan to take advantage of the Internet in order to deliver the Monitor's journalism more quickly, to improve the Monitor's timeliness and relevance, and to increase revenue and reduce costs,' she said.

The Monitor said it was forecast to lose US$18.9 million in the budget year ending April 30, 2009 and would require a subsidy of US$12.1 million (S$28.2 million) from its backer, the Christian Science church.

The paper, which has won seven Pulitzer Prizes, the top US journalism award, said its website, CSMonitor.com, currently attracts some 1.5 million visitors a month.