Small Newspaper Group To Merge Two Illinois Papers

By: Mark Fitzgerald On Sept. 1, the Small Newspaper Group will merge its three-day-a-week Times-Press in Streator, Ill., with The Daily Times in Ottawa, creating a six-day evening paper to be called The Times.

With the merger, the Streator paper will return to daily publication for the first time since 2001 when its frequency was reduced to three times a week.

That reduction was made because of the sluggish central Illinois economy, Daily Times General Manager James Malley said. The economy hasn't improved much since then -- but the chain decided not to reduce the frequency even more to a weekly.

"That wouldn't have been fair to the community, and it wouldn't have been fair to us," Malley said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

The merged paper will be launched with a "relatively large redesign" and goals that are straight out of research findings by the Readership Institute, the division of the Media Management Center at Northwestern University.

"If you don't do that, in this day and age, you just might be gone," Malley said.

In a note to readers, the Daily Times said the paper would have space for "more news and advertising content that is relevant and useful and fun for readers of all ages" with a commitment to local news and opinion. It will foster "more loyal readers...who want to read more of the paper more often," the paper said. It promised "more opportunities for readers to influence and contribute to the content of the newspaper," and "service above and beyond."

No full-time employees will be laid off as a result of the merger, Malley said. "Some full-timers will have to take up part of the work the part-timers did, but nobody has been laid off, and in this economy I think that's a positive," he added.

One thing won't change with the merger: the evening publishing cycle. "Both papers have been evening since their conception," Malley said. "We feel comfortable that evening publication...is the way to go."

The Daily Times has a circulation of 11,606, according to its latest statement to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The Times-Press has a sworn circulation of 7,843, according to the Editor & Publisher International Year Book.