David Black, center left, majority owner of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and Dennis Francis, publisher of the Star-Bulletin and MidWeek, met with staffers yesterday in the Star-Bulletin newsroom to announce plans to buy The Honolulu Advertiser. [Photo by Dennis Oda of Star Bulletin]
The story this morning in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin by Criag Girma was:
Sign of the times
Summary: Black plans one newspaper town and unions will have to renegotiate.
Here are the lead graphs
Honolulu will likely join most other U.S. cities with only one daily newspaper after the owners of the smaller Honolulu Star-Bulletin agreed to buy its longtime rival The Honolulu Advertiser.
The agreement for Oahu Publications Inc., which owns the Star-Bulletin and MidWeek, to acquire the Advertiser was announced yesterday in simultaneous meetings in both newsrooms.
"We're going to go from two papers to one, most likely," Star-Bulletin majority owner David Black said.
The sale will lead to layoffs when and if the papers are combined, although the number of layoffs has not been determined. The Advertiser has about 600 employees, with 120 people in the newsroom. The Star-Bulletin and MidWeek have about 300 employees with about 75 in the newsroom.
Agreement was announced by Oahu Publications and Gannett, owner of the Advertiser.
In partnership with KITV.com
The sale must still be approved by the Department of Justice, which has asked Oahu Publications owner David Black to put the Star-Bulletin up for sale to see whether a buyer will come forward.
It is the same condition required of Advertiser owner Gannett Co. nine years ago when Gannett attempted to end the joint operating agreement to publish both papers and tried to shut down the Star-Bulletin.
At that time Black stepped forward to buy the Star-Bulletin for $10,000 and, in a separate deal, also purchased MidWeek and its presses.
Both daily papers have struggled since then with the decline in newspaper advertising and the recent recession.
Black said he believes it is unlikely that a buyer will purchase the Star-Bulletin and agree to keep publishing the paper.
"It's just too expensive," Black said. "We are a long way from breaking even."
If a qualified buyer is not found, then the papers will be merged after the sale is completed in the second quarter of 2010.
THE DEAL AT A GLANCE
» Both daily papers will continue to publish separately for four to six months or possibly longer depending on the technical hurdles of merging the papers.
» The Star-Bulletin will be put up for sale to satisfy anti-trust concerns. If there are no buyers, the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin will be merged into one paper. MidWeek will continue its current operations.
» If there is a qualified buyer by early April, the Star-Bulletin will be sold and will publish under new management.
» If the Advertiser sale is approved by the Justice Department, the deal will close sometime between April and June. Terms of the deal were not announced.
» There will be layoffs if the papers are are combined, but it is unclear how many jobs will be lost.
"It's a sad day when we can't keep two good papers running in a city of this size," Black said.
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I know I posted this comment to an earlier blog, but I think it's worth repeating for those of us who loved working for a newspaper, particularly John Knight's Beacon Journal:
ReplyDeleteMimi's musings, a poignant, heart-wrenching account of the traumatic mudslide that has enveloped newspapers, is spot-on.
Those of us who retired a decade or more ago, although we didn't know it at the time, indeed were working in the "good ol' days" when I ran to work every day because I enjoyed it so much.
I feel bad for those who knew those glory days, but stayed till the buyouts and layoffs hit and the business/news separation blurred almost beyond recognition. It's like knowing what it feels like to be a millionaire, then winding up living in a cardboard box under the bridge.
I highly recommend that you read Mimi's musings about the lost glory of the newspaper business, particularly the one at
http://www.rubyeyedfox.com/Site/Musings/Entries/2010/2/22_%E2%80%9CDid_it_ever_occur_to_you_that_even_the_most_deathless_love_could_wear_out%E2%80%9D_Rhett_Butler_from_Gone_With_the_Wind..html
It hurts me to read such travail for my former co-workers even though I've been out of the newspaper business for 14 years.
Everyone appears to be thrilled beyond words at the announcement.
ReplyDeleteLarry, I hope their optimism is not whistling in the dark. I remember a co-worker of you and me saying that "it looks like a good thing" that Black Press bought the BJ. Then Black came in and ravaged the BJ staff on every floor.
ReplyDeleteTime will tell whether "everyone is thrilled beyond words." I certainly hope so. But I would be surprised if it's a good thing in the long run. Not with Black's track record at the BJ.
I was being sarcastic. They were so grim that you'd have thought it was the end of the world.
ReplyDelete