Although Gannett found itself caught in the predicament of not being able to either sell or close the Citizen, it did manage to end the printed version of the newspaper. In fact the end came so quickly, the Citizen wasn’t able to give its print readers advance warning of the final “epitaph” edition on May 16.
Once the U.S. Department of Justice told Gannett on May 14 that it was finished with its seven-month investigation of the proposed sale of the newspaper, the company gave the staff one day’s notice to put out the final edition.
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After Collins’ ruling, the last known active buyer for the Citizen, Stephen Hadland, CEO of Santa Monica Media Company, put out an e-mail saying, “Instead of using one newspaper’s profits to help the other newspaper as was intended by the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970, the Arizona Star is now free to feast on the carcass of the Tucson Citizen.”
So as the 138-year saga of the Citizen came to a close, the technicality is that Gannett neither sold nor closed the Citizen. The company says it will continue an online version of the Citizen focused on editorial opinions.
But the website will have two employees, not the 65 that were needed when the newspaper was being printed.
Also, it was agreed the morning Arizona Daily Star, owned by Lee Enterprises, would publish a weekly Citizen editorial. The first one appeared May 18, two days after the printed newspaper’s final edition, and was a promotional piece for the new website.
It remains to be seen if the Web-only version of the Citizen will be successful. For as much talk as there is about declining newspaper circulation, research suggests websites still need the synergy of another entity to attract readership. Only 4 percent of adults each week read online-only versions of newspapers, according to Scarborough Research.
When the Seattle Post-Intelligencer went Web-only in March, it lost 23 percent of its unique visitors and dropped off the top 30 list of newspaper websites, according to Broadcasting & Cable magazine.
Despite the end of the printed version of the Citizen, Gannett will continue to own half of TNI Partners, better known as Tucson Newspapers, the agency originally created by the owners of the two separate newspapers that combined business functions, including print production, advertising sales and circulation. Such agencies are allowed to bypass antitrust regarding price fixing under the Newspaper Preservation Act passed by Congress in 1970.
Gannett never included the partnership among the Citizen assets it put up for sale. At least one potential buyer, Tucson developer Don Diamond, said he inquired about buying the Citizen but only if the partnership in Tucson Newspapers were included in the deal. He said it was clear they would not do that.
In arguments before Judge Collins, attorneys for Gannett said the appraised value for the Citizen assets they tried to sell was $760,000 and that the highest offer received was for $400,000 over five years.
In its annual report last year, Lee Enterprises reported the combined profits from Tucson Newspapers for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2008, was $21 million.
Comcast, NFL agree
Comcast cable subscribers will continue to see to the NFL Network under an agreement that ends a three-year legal fight that had threatened to have the channel pulled from the cable system as of May 1. Under the new deal, Comcast has agreed to move the NFL Network from a separate sports package to its “digital classic” package which is received by about two-thirds of subscribers. That’s due to be done by Aug. 1.
Published reports say the deal will add between 40 and 50 cents cost per subscriber, which is about half what NFL Network originally wanted from Comcast.
In addition the NFL Network, Comcast subscribers will also get access to NFL video on demand programming and a new channel to be created by the NFL called the RedZone Channel.
Also last week, Comcast announced it will add the ESPNU channel to the “digital classic” lineup and include ESPN360.com as part of its Internet service on Comcast.net. Details of the launch are still being worked but Comcast says it intends to have ESPNU available for the state of the college football season and the channel’s new Southeastern Conference Saturday game-of-the-week. ESPNU focuses on college sports.
AutoTrader goes Web-only
Another publication that has gone Web-only — and is no longer vying for space on those racks of free publications at convenience markets and other retail locations — is AutoTrader. Earlier this month, publisher Cox Enterprises ended the print versions of the publication. AutoTrader Latino and AutoTrader Classics continue to publish their printed versions.
Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237. Inside Tucson Media appears weekly.
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