By: Joel Davis Black's Star-Bulletin Takes On Gannett's Advertiser
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - In the newspaper version of the Battle of the Pacific,
The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin will end
their joint operating agreement Thursday and go to war Friday.
That's when David Black's Black Press Ltd. is scheduled to take control of the
Star-Bulletin from Liberty Newspapers.
The Canadian publisher's reborn, 59,748-circulation Star-Bulletin is
adding a morning edition and a Sunday issue. It also is getting printing,
circulation, and advertising help from Midweek, a 280,000-free-
distribution weekly that Black bought in December. Midweek has its own
printing plant, and Black plans to modernize it to print the Star-
Bulletin, which will have a circulation goal of 100,000.
Meanwhile, the Gannett Co. Inc.-owned, 106,590-circulation Advertiser
says it will build a $70-million printing plant in Kapolei and relocate about
400 employees there in 2004, when the plant is set to open.
Both papers are planning new editions for head-to-head competition. Countering
the morning Advertiser's plan for an afternoon edition and a beefed-up
news staff, the evening Star-Bulletin will publish a morning edition.
Honolulu thus will be the battlefield for one of the most hotly contested
newspaper wars in the United States - with the two combatants publishing
two daily morning editions, two daily afternoon editions, and two Sunday
newspapers.
Joel Davis (jdavis@editorandpublisher.com) is West Coast editor for E&P.
Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.
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