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overview
holdings
chronology
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overview
This profile considers the US Knight Ridder newspaper
group, acquired and disassembled in 2006.
It covers -
introduction
As of 2005 San Jose (California) based Knight was the
second largest US newspaper publisher by circulation.
(Gannett was numero uno.) It
comprised over 50 newspapers across the US. In contrast
to most of its competitors it had not expanded into broadcast
or cable television and radio.
In 2005 Knight Ridder announced that it was selling the
Detroit Free Press and Tallahassee Democrat
to Gannett and acquiring the Boise Idaho Statesman,
Olympia (Washington) Olympian and the Bellingham
Herald from Gannett. In 2006, under pressure from
funds managers and without a super-voting class of stock
under the control of the founding families, it put itself
up for sale. In March 2006 it agreed to sell itself for
about US$4.5 billion in cash and stock to the McClatchy
Company, a publisher half its size. McClatchy thereupon
anounced plans to unload at least half of the Knight Ridder
titles.
In April McClatchy announced that it would sell The
San Jose Mercury News and The Contra Costa Times
of California to MediaNews and
a partnership that includes Gannett
and the Arkansas-based Stephens
Group. The Pioneer Press in St Paul and The
Herald in Monterey County in California would be
sold to Hearst, which would then
transfer those titles to MediaNews in exchange for an
equity stake in assets of MediaNews that are outside of
the San Francisco Bay Area (ie The Denver Post
and some 40 other papers).
In May McClatchy announced that the Philadelphia Inquirer
and Daily News had been sold to local group Philadelphia
Media Holdings for US$562 million. During the following
month it announced agreement to sell the Akron Beacon
Journal in Ohio (to Black
Press for US$165 million), Aberdeen American News
in South Dakota (to Schurz Communications), Fort Wayne
News-Sentinel in Indiana (to Ogden Newspapers),
Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota and Grand Forks
Herald in North Dakota (to Forum Communications)
for an aggregate US$450 million.
Knight's corporate site is here.
the group
As of 2005 the group published 32 dailies in 28 markets
in the US: claiming around 8.7 million readers daily and
12.9 million on Sunday. It also published 26 non-daily
newspapers, along with 'shoppers' and special publications.
Knight Ridder was formed in 1974 by the merger between
Knight Newspapers Inc. and Ridder Publications Inc.
Knight dated from 1903, when Charles Landon Knight purchased
the Akron Beacon Journal. Ridder Publications was
founded in 1892 when Herman Ridder acquired the German-language
Staats-Zeitung in New York. Both groups went public
in 1969.
The merger created a company with operations coast to
coast. The founding families had an insignificant share
of stock by 2006 (chair Anthony Ridder for example had
some 1.9%), with no super-voting shares on the model of
the Washington Times and New York Times groups. Knight
Ridder moved its headquarters from Miami to San Jose in
California, apparently in an unsuccessful effort to gain
some Silicon Valley gloss, but was criticised for low
revenue growth.
Sale of the group was precipitated by Private Capital
Management (PCM), Knight Ridder's largest shareholder
- with 19% of the equity - in November 2005. PCM executive
Bruce Sherman wrote to Knight Ridder's board commenting
that stockholders had run out of patience. "We believe
the board should aggressively pursue the competitive sale
of the company," noting that otherwise PCM would
consider joining forces with others to replace the board
or "take other action to maximize shareholder value."
The board responded by employing Morgan Stanley and Goldman
Sachs for an auction. After initial interest from Gannett,
MediaNews and private equity groups,
only McClatchy made a formal bid. PCM appears to have
made a trivial profit
An indication of holdings is here.
studies
The major studies of Knight Ridder are Charles Whited's
Knight: A Publisher in the Tumultuous Century (New
York: Dutton 1988) and Knightfall: Knight Ridder And
How The Erosion Of Newspaper Journalism Is Putting Democracy
At Risk (New York: Amacom 2005) by Davis Merritt.
Broader academic studies include Leaving Readers Behind:
The Age of Corporate Newspapering (Fayetteville: Uni
of Arkansas Press 2001) edited by Gene Roberts, Thomas
Kunkel & Charles Layton and The Menace of the Corporate
Newspaper: Fact or Fiction? (Ames: Iowa State Uni
Press 1996) by David Demers. Media critic Ben Bagdikian
commented in 1967 that
trying
to be a first-rate reporter on the average American
newspaper is like trying to play Bach's Saint Matthew
Passion on the ukelele. The instrument is too crude
for the work, for the audience and for the performer.
In noting recent developments among the chains he suggested
that the "press is greatly improved and may now be
likened more to an acoustic guitar".
A perspective is provided by Dane Claussen's 1999 paper
The Myths and Realities of Newspaper Acquisition Costs:
Fiduciary Responsibilities, Fungibility of Assets, Winners'
Penalties & Excess Cash "Problems".
For the Detroit Free Press see Bryan Gruley's
Paper Losses: A Modern Epic of Greed and Betrayal
at America's Two Largest Newspaper Companies (New
York: Grove Press 1993).
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