Creative Commons/James Cridland

Struggling to hang on to its businesses and sports teams, Oakland is now set to lose the daily newspaper that bears its name.

In November, the Oakland Tribune, founded 137 years ago, will become the East Bay Tribune, the Bay Area News Group announced Tuesday.

The group described the name change as a "rebranding."

The Fremont Argus, the Alameda Times-Star, the Hayward Daily Review and the West County Times — which are also owned by BANG — will also be called the East Bay Tribune.

As part of the rebranding, the Contra Costa Times, the Valley Times, the San Ramon Valley Times, the Tri-Valley Herald, the San Joaquin Herald and the East County Times will simply be called The Times. The San Mateo Times "will be branded under the San Jose Mercury News masthead," according to a statement from BANG. The new names will take effect on Nov. 2.

BANG also announced it will cut 120 jobs from its newspaper chain. "We're taking these actions to strengthen the company for the future and to offer additional value to readers and advertisers," Mac Tully, the president of BANG, said in a written statement.

For the editors of the Oakland Tribune, the cuts could have been worse.

“I don't want to put lipstick on a pig and say it's all good, but to me its important that we still have reporters in Oakland covering the community,” said Martin Reynolds, the Oakland Tribune’s top editor. “We did the best that we could in making the alignment that we did.”

When Reynolds started as an intern for the Tribune in 1995, there were 40 to 50 reporters, and the paper was housed downtown in the iconic Tribune Tower, at the heart of Oakland’s civic life.

Today, there are a dozen reporters, Reynolds said, and the paper makes its home in a sterile office park off the freeway near the Oakland Coliseum — far from downtown.

“I think the challenge for the Tribune has been that it doesn’t have the advertising base and the penetration it needs,” said Reynolds. “It’s a challenge that mirrors the challenge the city is facing.”

The news saddened longtime Oakland residents like Larry Reid, the City Council president.