The City Paper started with a daily circulation of about 40,000 copies and was delivered free of charge to homes in the Nashville Metropolitan area.

On March 2, 2004, City Paper founder Brian Brown announced he was replacing himself as publisher with Tom Larimer, previously of the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro.

Ezzell, who served on The City Paper’s operating committee for three years, is the chief financial officer of Thompson Machinery Commerce Corp., whose owners would later buy the newspaper.

In June 2007, it was estimated that The City Paper reached an average of more than 250,000 unique readers each week, according to a media audit reported in the Nashville Scene.

Cavendish remained at the helm until, citing falling advertising revenues and calling it "a very expensive experiment,"[1] SouthComm executives ceased its publication on August 9, 2013.