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overview
landmarks
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overview
This
profile considers the Seattle Times group, centred on
the daily Seattle Times.
It covers -
introduction
The daily Seattle Times, owned by the Seattle
Times Company, is the highest circulation daily newspaper
in Washington state and the largest circulation Sunday
paper in the US.
Seattle Times Co is controlled by the Blethen family,
with 50.5% of voting stock and some 35% of non-voting).
Knight Ridder has 49.5% of voting stock and 65% of non-voting.
The Times has a Joint Operating Agreement (JOA)
with Hearst's Seattle Post-Intelligencer
under the federal Newspaper Preservation Act.
In 1998 Seattle Times paid US$200 million for the Maine
newspapers of Guy Gannett Communications, a print and
broadcast group that is not related to the sprawling 'McPaper'
Gannett group profiled elsewhere
on this site.
the group
Other newspapers owned by Seattle Times include -
-
Central Maine Morning Sentinel
- Kennebec
Journal
- Yakima
Herald
- Walla
Walla Union-Bulletin
- Portland
Press Herald
-
Maine Sunday Telegram
-
Maine Coastal Journal
- Issaquah
Press
Apart from websites the group encompasses Times Distribution,
commercial printer Rotary Offset Press, Inc and several
non-newspaper subsidiaries in Maine.
evolution
The Seattle Press-Times was acquired in
1896 by Colonel Alden Blethen, who had practiced law in
Maine before losing the Minneapolis Tribune after
a fire destroyed its building and failing with The
Penny Press. Under Blethen's editorship circulation
of the evening Times climbed from around 3,000
in 1896 to over 70,000 in 1915.
The paper weathered labour disagreements in the first
two decades of last century - a counterpart to the strife
affecting Colonel Otis of the
Los Angeles Times - and from the mid-twenties
was one of two dominant Washington state newspapers
In 1998 the Seattle Times Company paid US$200 million
for the Maine newspapers of Guy Gannett Communications.
Guy Gannett (unrelated to Gannett,
profiled elsewhere on this site) had five papers in Maine,
television stations in Maine, Iowa, Massachusetts, and
Illinois and Californian software house MarCole. Gannett
traced its origins to Comfort magazine, launched
in 1888 by Guy Gannett's father William. The Gannetts
acquired a cluster of Maine newspapers in the 1920s, expanding
into radio in 1938 and television in the 1950s.
In 1983 the Seattle Times Co and Hearst,
owner of the competing daily Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
implemented a Joint Operating Agreement under the the
federal Newspaper Preservation Act. That agreement
provides for the news and editorial operations of the
two newspapers to be separate and competitive, with however
all advertising, marketing, printing and circulation operations
(and most business functions) for both papers to be managed
by the Seattle Times Co.
The Post-Intelligencer traces its origins to
the Seattle weekly Gazette founded by James Watson
in 1863. In 1867 Samuel Maxwell bought the assets of the
Gazette, renaming it the Intelligencer
and subsequently merging it with the Seattle Post as the
Post-Intelligencer. In 1921 it was sold to John
Perry, acting as a 'dummy' for William Randolph Hearst.
The Post-Intelligencer is reported to have lost
around US$14 million between 1969 and 1980, with Hearst
apparently rebuffing approaches by Rupert Murdoch. At
the end of the 1970s the Times required major
investment and thus welcomed opportunities for cost savings
through resource-sharing with the Post-Intelligencer,
which Hearst successfully characterised as a "failing
newspaper" in seeking a JOA. The Agreement was upheld
by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; the Supreme Court
declined to hear an appeal by employees, advertisers and
suburban publishers.
The Times and the Post-Intelligencer
both experienced initial circulation gains and increased
profitability after implementation of the JOA but relations
between the two publishers were increasingly contentious.
A 1999 revision of the JOA saw the Times move
to publish in the mornings, with Hearst's share of joint
profits increasing to 40%.
In 2008 the Seattle Times Co. put its Maine newspapers
(inc the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec
Journal, Waterville Morning Sentinel and
Bath Coastal Journal) up for sale, saying it
needed funds to help the flagship paper survive an industrywide
drop in advertising revenue. The sale proceeds would primarily
be used to reduce debt, mostly attributable to borrowing
for acquisition of those papers.
studies
The major study of the founder is Sharon Boswell &
Lorraine McConaghy's Raise Hell and Sell Newspapers,
Alden J Blethen and The Seattle Times (Pullman: Washington
State Uni Press 1996).
For the JOA see Tim Pilgrim's Nothing Ventured, Nothing
Gained: The Seattle JOA and Newspaper Preservation
(Norwood: Ablex 1997). A perspective is provided in Timothy
Gibson's Securing the Spectacular City: The Politics
of Revitalization and Homelessness in Downtown Seattle
(Lanham: Lexington Books 2004)
There has been no major study of Guy Gannett Communications.
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