Because large cities have the population to support a local newspaper.
Small town are consumed by the small town nature of living, therefore they support the local paper.
Mid Sized towns, best advertising sweet spot in pricing and reach. Sinclair Media (I think it is Sinclair) has basically bought all mid size city media because the best bang for their buck.
Makes sense.
In Alabama, the only mid-sized town with a published daily newspaper is Montgomery, but I don't know how they stay in business. Daily circulation (according to their Facebook page) is only about 8,700 and Sunday is 11,800. Of other mid-sized cities, neither Huntsville, Birmingham, or Mobile have printed newspapers at all, starting in January. Decatur has a daily, and I think Athens does too but neither have much in them.
I'm old school and still long for printed dailys - read during breakfast and start a fire or polish the windshield when finished with it. It's hard to do the latter two with a computer, tablet, or phone.