MediaNews Group, based in
Denver, Colorado, is one of the largest
newspaper companies in the
United States. It is privately owned and operates 56
daily newspapers in 12 states, with combined daily and Sunday circulation of approximately 2.6 million and 2.9 million, respectively. The company also owns
KTVA, a
CBS affiliate in
Anchorage, Alaska, and radio stations in
Texas.
The company's chairman is Gary Wright and its chief executive officer and vice chairman is founder
William Dean Singleton. The president is
Jody Lodovic.
History
Singleton founded MediaNews Group in 1983.
In August, 2006, the company took out around $350 million in loans to purchase four newspapers from
McClatchy Company. Among those providing the loan was the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The loan was mostly used to help pay for the acquisition of two significant
San Francisco Bay Area newspapers (and some smaller papers), including the
San Jose Mercury News and the
Contra Costa Times, the dominant papers in the
San Jose and
Contra Costa County, California markets; in total, the purchases amounted to roughly $737 million.
Hearst Corporation owns 31% of MediaNews publications outside the San Francisco Bay area.
In 2004, MediaNews Group acquired the
York Daily Record, a 45,000 circulation morning paper in
York, Pennsylvania.
New England Newspapers
In
1995 MediaNews made its first foray into
New England, purchasing the
Berkshire Eagle and associated newspapers, including the
Vermont dailies
Brattleboro Reformer and
Bennington Banner[Elfland, Mike. "Sentinel & Enterprise Sale Set," Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.), January 8, 1997.] and
Connecticut daily
Middletown Press, the last of which it sold soon after to
Journal Register Company.
In the next two years, MediaNews expanded its footprint across Massachusetts' northern tier with its purchases of the
North Adams Transcript (
1996),
Sentinel & Enterprise in
Fitchburg (
1997)
and
The Sun of
Lowell (also in
1997). MediaNews also purchased the
Connecticut Post in
2000, paying $203 million.
In 2007, MediaNews expanded in Connecticut, operating the Stamford Advocate and the Greenwich Time, two dailies in lower Fairfield County with a combined circulation of about 35,000. The Hearst Corporation purchased the two papers from the Tribune Company, and MediaNews operated them through an existing agreement between the two companies until August 2008, when Hearst bought out MediaNews' interest in the Connecticut papers.
The New England papers are owned by New England Newspapers Incorporated, a solely owned subsidiary of MediaNews Group. The subsidiary president is Andrew H. Mick.
Corporate Culture
MediaNews Group is known as a cost-cutter in the newspaper publishing industry. The company has a reputation for buying smaller daily newspapers in a single area (examples include Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area) and consolidating their operations, including sharing staff writers and printing facilities. As a result of the cost-cutting, according to an article in the
Los Angeles Times, some former employees say that the newspapers are focused on making a profit to the detriment of good journalism.
On the other hand, Singleton is quick to point out that MediaNews is committed to print journalism, not diversification into other media.
The Berkshire Eagle editor David E. Scribner, two years after MediaNews bought his newspaper, said the staff respected Singleton despite layoffs because of his hands-on leadership and "traditional emphasis on good writing."
Antitrust Allegations
On
July 14,
2006, San Francisco businessman and real estate investor
Clint Reilly filed a lawsuit against MediaNews Group and
San Francisco Chronicle parent
Hearst Corporation, alleging that the two companies have been conspiring to control advertising rates, a violation of antitrust laws. In November 2006, Reilly's attorney presented to U.S. District Judge
Susan Illston a letter from Hearst senior vice president James Asher to MediaNews President Jody Lodovic that said the two companies agreed to "offer national advertising and internet advertising sales for their San Francisco Bay Area newspapers on a joint basis, and to consolidate the San Francisco Bay Area distribution networks of such newspapers ...." Illston, suggesting she had been misled by the companies when they said they had not been collaborating, issued a 14-page ruling forbidding Hearst and MediaNews from working together on national advertising sales or distribution. On
December 21,
2006, the
San Francisco Bay Guardian and nonprofit
Media Alliance filed suit to make the details of Reilly's lawsuit—and MediaNews and the
Chronicle's response—public. As a result of the filing, many documents in the case were voluntarily disclosed by the defendants. The judge allowed redacted versions of two more documents to be released. She kept 17 others under seal. One of the documents unsealed was the deposition of Hearst's Asher, who says that as of September 2006, his company had recorded cumulative losses of $330 million on its investment in the
Chronicle, which it acquired in mid-2000. He said Hearst proposed selling the
Chronicle to MediaNews, but MediaNews didn't offer enough money. Asher also said Hearst and MediaNews have discussed working together for years. Although the trial was scheduled to start Monday,
April 30,
2007 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the parties announced Wednesday,
April 25,
2007 that a settlement had been reached.
Newspapers
Dailies
Daily newspapers owned by MediaNews, alphabetically by state and hometown, are:
Weekly newspapers
Other properties
Other MediaNews properties include:
- Lake Country Radio stations:
