ELLENTON, Fla. — The owner of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced Saturday that the show will close forever in May, ending a 146-year run by the ‘‘The Greatest Show on Earth.’’

The iconic American spectacle was felled by a variety of factors, company executives say. Declining attendance combined with high operating costs, along with changing public tastes and prolonged battles with animal rights groups all contributed to its demise.

‘‘There isn’t any one thing,’’ said Kenneth Feld, chairman and chief executive of Feld Entertainment. ‘‘This has been a very difficult decision for me and for the entire family.’’

The company broke the news to circus employees Saturday night after shows in Orlando and Miami.

Ringling Bros. has two touring circuses this season and will perform 30 shows between now and May. Major stops include Atlanta, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, and Brooklyn. The final shows will be in Providence on May 7 and in Uniondale, N.Y., at the Nassau County Coliseum on May 21.

The circus, with its exotic animals, flashy costumes, and death-defying acrobats, has been a staple of entertainment in the United States since the mid-1800s. Phineas Taylor Barnum made a traveling spectacle of animals and human oddities popular, while the five Ringling brothers performed juggling acts and skits from their home base in Wisconsin. Eventually, they merged and the modern circus was born. The sprawling troupes traveled around America by train, wowing audiences with the sheer scale of entertainment and exotic animals.

By midcentury, the circus was a routine, wholesome family entertainment. But as the 20th century went on, kids became less and less enthralled. Movies, television, video games, and the Internet captured young minds.

‘‘The competitor in many ways is time,’’ said Feld, adding that transporting the show by rail and other circus quirks — such as providing a traveling school for performers’ children— are throwbacks to another era. ‘‘It’s a different model that we can’t see how it works in today’s world to justify and maintain an affordable ticket price. So you’ve got all these things working against it.’’

The Feld family bought the Ringling circus in 1967. The show was just under 3 hours then. Today, the show is 2 hours and 7 minutes.

Feld and his daughter, Juliette Feld, who is the company’s chief operating officer, acknowledged another reality that led to the closing, and it was the one thing that initially drew millions to the show: the animals. Ringling has been targeted by activists who say forcing animals to perform is cruel and unnecessary.

In May 2016, after a long and costly legal battle, the company removed elephants from the shows and sent the animals to live on a conservation farm in Central Florida. The animals had been the symbol of the circus since Barnum brought an Asian elephant named Jumbo to America in 1882.

By the time the elephants were removed, public opinion had shifted somewhat. Los Angeles prohibited the use of bull-hooks by elephant trainers and handlers, as did Oakland, Calif. The city of Asheville, N.C., nixed wild or exotic animals from performing in the municipally owned, 7,600-seat US Cellular Center.

Attendance has been dropping for 10 years, said Juliette Feld, but when the elephants left, there was a ‘‘dramatic drop’’ in ticket sales. Paradoxically, while many said they didn’t want big animals to perform in circuses, many others refused to attend a circus without them.