This week in weird newspaper acquisitions - Metro Philadelphia buys Philadelphia City Paper
Back in April, I wrote about how Tribune-owned Baltimore Sun, the city's only daily newspaper, bought the City Paper - the city's only alternative newspaper. I questioned the logic of this purchase, and the long-term implications for the Baltimore media landscape.
I'm always weary about the daily newspapers purchasing alt-weeklies. While being owned by Sun-Times Media hasn't been too bad for the Chicago Reader, City Paper saw problems pretty much the second the purchase went through. And ultimately, I always question the logic of a daily newspaper buying an alternative newspaper. They have different traditions, different editorial philosophies, and there is always the lingering danger that the daily newspaper would undercut the many things that make an alt-weekly appealing in the first place.
Well, earlier this week, something a bit unexpected happened. Metro US, an American spin-off of the Swedish-based international chain of commuter newspapers, decided to buy Philadelphia City Paper, one of the city's two alternative newspapers.
(The Philadelphia City Paper, by the way, has nothing to do with the Baltimore City Paper. Or the Washington [D.C.] City Paper. Or the Pittsburgh City Paper. Seriously - what is it with alt weeklies in East Coast states and "city paper" names?)
For those who are not familiar with the Metro newspapers, they fill the similar function as the Tribune-owned RedEye does in Chicago - they come out during weekdays and are meant to be read by commuters on the trains-buses. While they occasionally do more in-depth, feature-style articles, they tend to go for shorter, puncher articles, columns and event listings - things that can be read quickly and give you a decent overview of the day's news, issues, sports stuff and events. Metro newspapers a familiar presence in many major cities throughout Europe, Canada and (I think) parts of Asia. In United States, they have presence in three cities - Boston, New York City and Philadelphia.
Now, my first thought was - why on Earth would they want an alt-weekly? While there is some overlap in terms of arts and entertainment coverage, they have different audiences, different purpose and different release schedules. And to say nothing about editorial standards - commuter weeklies tend to be more family-friendly in terms of language and content, while alt-weeklies usually allow swearing and more graphic description of violence and sexual acts.
The official press release lays out the reasoning thusly:
“The addition of City Paper to our media portfolio will strengthen our offerings and market position in Philadelphia,” says [City Paper's new publisher] Jennifer Clark. “We are glad to bring the best of Philadelphia together for the benefits of readers and advertisers alike.”
In other words, it is, first and foremost, about advertisers. As I've written before, one of the ways newspaper companies have been trying to stay afloat is to expand the size of their advertising base. Metro Philadelphia will now be able to offer their clients ads in more newspapers.
The two publications jointly reach over 840,000 Philadelphians every week and deliver to the most attractive and vibrant audience in Philadelphia. On Thursdays, the combination reaches more adults under 50 years old than the Inquirer and the Daily News combined.
Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News being the city's home daily broadsheet newspaper and daily tabloid, respectively.
Clark, who became publisher for both newspapers once the sale was completed, said all the right things about maintaining the two papers' distinct identities.
"We are very much committed to maintaining separate editiorial [sic] style and function ... with some obvious sharing of resources in the back office and production," Clark told Philly Mag. "City Paper is great at investigative journalism, that's a weekly format. Metro's great at news you can use, quick bites of information. We plan to continue those unique styles, and the voice that they each have."
But at the same time, she did say that they would "bring the best of Philadelphia together for the benefits of readers and advertisers alike."
While RedEye produces original content, it also republishes articles from wire services and its daily sister newspapers (mostly Chicago Tribune, but also Los Angeles Times and some smaller newspapers). I do have to wonder if Metro Philadelphia is going to republish articles from the City Paper - and vice versa.
And then, there's this
I think it's a great thing for both parties to have a stronger collaboration, potential to work together where it matters, but to maintain two important brands in Philadelphia.
This could honestly go either way.
Since the acquisition, Metro fired some of City Paper's sales people - which is only natural, since the purchase kind of made them redundant. But they also fired some people from the arts side, which is more worrisome. While one might think have two art teams is also kind of redundant, the two papers have different design sensibilities. When Sun-Times Media bought the Reader, the classified section started to occasionally take on design elements from the Sun-Times Media's daily newspapers' classified section - which continues to clash rather badly.
That and Metro is cutting people who have experience designing the City Paper in favor of people who don't... Which is not necessarily an awful thing, but I'm skeptical.
Also, Metro fired at least one staff writer.
At least it wasn't the kind of bloodbath Baltimore City Paper staff faced. And, unlike in Baltimore, there is an alternative - the Philadelphia Weekly.
Since Sun-Times Media acquired the Chicago Reader, New City, the Windy City's other alt-weekly, has been emphasizing its independence. And things do seem to be going fairly well for them in terms of ad revenue.
I wonder if Philadelphia Weekly will benefit from City Paper's sale as well.
I'm always weary about the daily newspapers purchasing alt-weeklies. While being owned by Sun-Times Media hasn't been too bad for the Chicago Reader, City Paper saw problems pretty much the second the purchase went through. And ultimately, I always question the logic of a daily newspaper buying an alternative newspaper. They have different traditions, different editorial philosophies, and there is always the lingering danger that the daily newspaper would undercut the many things that make an alt-weekly appealing in the first place.
Well, earlier this week, something a bit unexpected happened. Metro US, an American spin-off of the Swedish-based international chain of commuter newspapers, decided to buy Philadelphia City Paper, one of the city's two alternative newspapers.
(The Philadelphia City Paper, by the way, has nothing to do with the Baltimore City Paper. Or the Washington [D.C.] City Paper. Or the Pittsburgh City Paper. Seriously - what is it with alt weeklies in East Coast states and "city paper" names?)
For those who are not familiar with the Metro newspapers, they fill the similar function as the Tribune-owned RedEye does in Chicago - they come out during weekdays and are meant to be read by commuters on the trains-buses. While they occasionally do more in-depth, feature-style articles, they tend to go for shorter, puncher articles, columns and event listings - things that can be read quickly and give you a decent overview of the day's news, issues, sports stuff and events. Metro newspapers a familiar presence in many major cities throughout Europe, Canada and (I think) parts of Asia. In United States, they have presence in three cities - Boston, New York City and Philadelphia.
Now, my first thought was - why on Earth would they want an alt-weekly? While there is some overlap in terms of arts and entertainment coverage, they have different audiences, different purpose and different release schedules. And to say nothing about editorial standards - commuter weeklies tend to be more family-friendly in terms of language and content, while alt-weeklies usually allow swearing and more graphic description of violence and sexual acts.
The official press release lays out the reasoning thusly:
“The addition of City Paper to our media portfolio will strengthen our offerings and market position in Philadelphia,” says [City Paper's new publisher] Jennifer Clark. “We are glad to bring the best of Philadelphia together for the benefits of readers and advertisers alike.”
In other words, it is, first and foremost, about advertisers. As I've written before, one of the ways newspaper companies have been trying to stay afloat is to expand the size of their advertising base. Metro Philadelphia will now be able to offer their clients ads in more newspapers.
The two publications jointly reach over 840,000 Philadelphians every week and deliver to the most attractive and vibrant audience in Philadelphia. On Thursdays, the combination reaches more adults under 50 years old than the Inquirer and the Daily News combined.
Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News being the city's home daily broadsheet newspaper and daily tabloid, respectively.
Clark, who became publisher for both newspapers once the sale was completed, said all the right things about maintaining the two papers' distinct identities.
"We are very much committed to maintaining separate editiorial [sic] style and function ... with some obvious sharing of resources in the back office and production," Clark told Philly Mag. "City Paper is great at investigative journalism, that's a weekly format. Metro's great at news you can use, quick bites of information. We plan to continue those unique styles, and the voice that they each have."
But at the same time, she did say that they would "bring the best of Philadelphia together for the benefits of readers and advertisers alike."
While RedEye produces original content, it also republishes articles from wire services and its daily sister newspapers (mostly Chicago Tribune, but also Los Angeles Times and some smaller newspapers). I do have to wonder if Metro Philadelphia is going to republish articles from the City Paper - and vice versa.
And then, there's this
I think it's a great thing for both parties to have a stronger collaboration, potential to work together where it matters, but to maintain two important brands in Philadelphia.
This could honestly go either way.
Since the acquisition, Metro fired some of City Paper's sales people - which is only natural, since the purchase kind of made them redundant. But they also fired some people from the arts side, which is more worrisome. While one might think have two art teams is also kind of redundant, the two papers have different design sensibilities. When Sun-Times Media bought the Reader, the classified section started to occasionally take on design elements from the Sun-Times Media's daily newspapers' classified section - which continues to clash rather badly.
That and Metro is cutting people who have experience designing the City Paper in favor of people who don't... Which is not necessarily an awful thing, but I'm skeptical.
Also, Metro fired at least one staff writer.
At least it wasn't the kind of bloodbath Baltimore City Paper staff faced. And, unlike in Baltimore, there is an alternative - the Philadelphia Weekly.
Since Sun-Times Media acquired the Chicago Reader, New City, the Windy City's other alt-weekly, has been emphasizing its independence. And things do seem to be going fairly well for them in terms of ad revenue.
I wonder if Philadelphia Weekly will benefit from City Paper's sale as well.