Cheers ? and Jeers p.

By: Mark Fitzgerald

Revived Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sells out 385,000 press run,
but lawsuit by competing newspaper could cloud its future sp.

PITTSBURGHERS MARKED THE end of an eight-month local daily newspaper drought by snapping up 385,000 copies of a revived Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Jan. 18.
Circulation director Thomas G. Herrmann said there were "incredible" single-copy sales of the first daily newspaper published in Pittsburgh since Teamster circulation workers walked off their jobs May 17 and halted publication of the jointly published Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Press.
Herrmann conceded that home delivery was late in many areas but said he expected prompt delivery to return soon.
With its re-emergence, the Post-Gazette also changed from the smaller-circulation junior partner in a joint operating agreement with the afternoon Press to the only locally published Pittsburgh daily.
The Press is remembered in a green small-type legend below the front-page banner that reads, "And the Best of The Pittsburgh Press."
About 80 former Press newsroom employees have been hired by the Post-Gazette, leaving another 120 unemployed. Under an agreement with delivery and production unions, the jobs of another 260 employees, who worked for the Press-dominated JOA, will be eliminated over a five-year period.
The Post-Gazette faces challenges to presumed one-paper dominance of Pittsburgh, however.
The Tribune-Review of Greensburg is moving on the Post-Gazette on two fronts, combining a newspaper war with litigation.
Just before the Post-Gazette resumed publication, the Tribune-Review added the name Pittsburgh to copies circulated in the city. It has also opened a Pittsburgh news bureau and leased two distribution warehouses for the city and its close-in suburbs.
During the eight-month strike, Tribune-Review circulation grew from about 53,000 to 85,000 on weekdays and from about 94,000 to approximately 200,000 on Sundays, the newspaper said.
Tribune-Review president Edward H. Harrell said he believes the paper, owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, has good long-term prospects in Pittsburgh.
"First, we think there's room in Pittsburgh for two papers," he said.
"And technologically, [the Post-Gazette] is so far behind [that] we can present a much better-looking paper with much better content. They simply can't run color, for instance," Harrell added.
"Third, they are traditionally the left-wing editorial page while we're considered the basic conservative paper. I think we'll get readers just right there," he said.
The Tribune-Review has also sued the Block family's Blade Communications, publisher of the Post-Gazette, as well as E.W. Scripps, former owner of the Press, and First Boston Corp., which brokered the sale of the Press to the Post-Gazette.
In the suit, filed Jan. 8 in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court in Greensburg, the Tribune-Review contends that the sale was rigged to ensure that both Blade and Scripps ended up with newspaper monopolies.
In the transaction, which was approved by the U.S. Justice Department Dec. 30, Blade paid cash and preferred stock and transferred The Herald of Monterey, Calif., to Scripps.
(In an 8-K form filing Jan. 13, Scripps said it received $19 million in cash plus Blade preferred stock with an estimated fair value of $16 million. It valued the 35,000-circulation Herald at $19 million.) Scaife has said he bid far more than Blade ? $150 million ? for the Press newspaper and its publishing company, Pittsburgh Press Co.
Both Scripps and Blade have declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The Tribune-Review's Harrell said single-copy draws did not decline in the first few days after the Post-Gazette's return.
Home delivery, however, is where the real fight will be waged ? a fight whose outcome will not be clear immediately.
"They are, of course, giving the paper away," Harrell said of the rival Post-Gazette.
In an aggressive wooing of readers, former Post-Gazette and Press subscribers are getting the paper free for the first 13 days. The daily cover price of 35? is being retained and home-delivery prices are not increasing. Under the JOA, the Post-Gazette did not publish on Sundays.
A heavy broadcast and outdoor ad campaign has also been launched.
One sign that the paper is winning back some good will is a tv ad featuring Pittsburgh's grandmotherly mayor, Sophie Masloff. During the strike, Masloff pointedly threatened to cancel her personal subscription ? and the city's ? if the Press Co. tried to publish with non-union workers.