By: Lucia Moses While their attractive advertising and circulation growth curves may make them the envy of daily publishers, free alternative weeklies aren't all living it up -- or living at all.
Two died abrupt deaths last week when the two big alt-weekly chains, Village Voice Media LLC and NT Media LLC (New Times), agreed to shut down the No. 2 weeklies in Los Angeles and Cleveland rather than keep competing for readers and advertisers.
The deal, which reportedly involved an undisclosed amount of cash, ends New Times' seven-year effort to make a go of
New Times Los Angeles, leaving Voice Media's
LA Weekly the survivor. New Times, in return, gets the Cleveland market, where it owns the leading alt weekly,
Cleveland Scene.
If some in the business expressed shock and dismay at the news, they also recognized that the closure of
New Times L.A. and
Cleveland Free Times is just the latest step that has diminished newspaper competition. But a new battlefront may be forming: between big city dailies and alt weeklies, vying for young readers.
Some alt-weekly folks would like to think their papers are about more than the bottom line, but recent history suggests an increasing financial orientation. An investor group now owns New York's
Village Voice and its five sibling Voice Media weeklies: Former group owner Leonard Stern shuttered papers in Seattle and Minneapolis. New Times bought, then closed, its Houston competition and consolidated two L.A papers to form
New Times L.A. in 1996. And the Tribune Co.'s portfolio includes a group of alternatives it picked up in its purchase of the Times Mirror Co.
New Times L.A. distributed about 105,000 copies to
LA Weekly's roughly 186,000. In Cleveland, Voice Media's 10-year-old
Free Times distributed about 75,000 copies to the 32-year-old
Scene's 90,000.
Overall, alternatives posted a 1% decline in ad revenue last year, still strong by daily newspaper standards.
Experts debated the possible antitrust implications of last week's deal, but Robert J. Broadwater, managing director at media merchant bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson, which handled the Stern sale two years ago, said the abundance of media left in both cities and the small size of the deal work against an antitrust case. "In today's environment, the last thing you would think would raise any competitive issues is two alternative newsweeklies," he said. And history shows that sales resulting in newspaper closings are hard to block, said Daniel L. Rubinfeld, an antitrust expert at the University of California at Berkeley.
And while alt-weekly publishers have always boasted of their popularity among young readers, last week's deal suggested a sense of defensiveness. According to the
Los Angeles Times, Voice Media chief David Schneiderman said a factor in his decision to buy out the New Times paper was concern over the intentions of the
L.A. Times parent, the Tribune Co., which is seriously considering offshoots in Chicago and on Long Island, N.Y., for young readers. Tribune is expected to announce this week its plans for a new tabloid for 18-to-24-year-olds (with the working title
Red Eye).
If Tribune decides to try the same tack in L.A., Schneiderman worries, his
LA Weekly would face more competition for readers and advertisers.
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