Newspaper survival

[Scott Fybush]

Sean Smyth wrote:

> To address Scott's message a bit ago: There are a number of multi-paper
> markets where the papers themselves are separately owned.
> Joint-operating agreements don't cover the ownership of the newspaper;
> in each case, separate companies own the newspapers -- for example,
> MediaNews owns The Denver Post and Scripps owns the Rocky Mountain News
> -- and also jointly own a company that manages non-newsgathering
> functions (classifieds, other advertising, distribution, finance, etc.).

That's one of about a half-dozen such JOA situations remaining. Detroit 
and Seattle are the other two big ones; the rest are in Charleston WV, 
Fort Wayne, Salt Lake City, Tucson and York PA.

The JOA in Madison WI between the Wisconsin State Journal and the 
Capital Times will breathe its last on April 26, when the Capital Times 
folds.

There's also a sorta-JOA remaining in Las Vegas, where the Las Vegas Sun 
ceased to exist as a separate paper a couple of years ago, and now 
appears as a section inserted in the competing Las Vegas Review-Journal.

An interesting trend that's starting to develop among some of these 
failing second papers is that they continue to survive in some reduced 
form, either online or as inserts into the bigger paper. The Capital 
Times in Madison will still exist as a website and a twice-weekly 
tabloid insert to the State Journal, and in Cincinnati the Post lives 
on, sort of, as the kypost.com website devoted to local news in northern 
Kentucky. It's operated by Scripps in conjunction with WCPO-TV.

s