Buried back in the business section of today’s Times Standard is a story by Ryan Burns
“T-S files unfair business practices lawsuit against The Eureka Reporter.”
Specifically the suit filed by T-S/Tri-City parent corp California Newspaper Partnership (a division of Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc.) alleges that the E-R has been selling ads at a cut rate and operating at a loss, “targeting known customers of the Times-Standard and the Tri-City Weekly with the intent of eliminating the papers as competitors.”
According to the T-S, “The California Newspaper Partnership estimates losses in advertising revenue of approximately $3 million, while the value of The Times-Standard and the Tri-City Weekly have been depressed by as much as $40 million, according to the complaint.”
Burns goes on to draw comparison to a suit in the alt. weekly world: “The
San Francisco Bay Guardian successfully brought a similar case against the SF Weekly
, the East Bay Express and their owner, New Times Media, alleging illegal advertising practices.”
This article appears in Dreams of Obama.
“depressed by as much as $40 million”
what are they smoking?!!
Why do they bury this kind of news? Don’t be bashful, T-S. Put it on the front page.
Question. Did the CNP’s lawyers contact the North Coast Journal about joining as a plaintiff in this lawsuit? The Journal doesn’t have the case the T-S does as it wasn’t targeted by Arkley and the ER, but the Journal might have a case for damages. As the Journal’s publisher has noted, the Journal has suffered from low-market ad rates.
Andrew, for God’s sakes, please don’t give anyone any ideas. There’s about a dozen good reasons to stay out of this, and none of them have anything to do with where we print our paper.
The Times-Standard still has a web press.
The Tri-City’s dismal existence can’t be blamed on the Eureka reporter, but rather on its acquisition by the TS chain. It was once a vibrant advertising vehicle, not just warmed over Times-Standard Classified ads. That was when its management was hungry and had a vision, and was constantly striving for success.
People looked forward to it coming out every Tuesday.
With all due respect to the people trying tpo keep it going – it just ain’t there anymore.
Acchhh! Dang typos! In Wordpress I can’t retract my comment and fix ’em. Typing too fast.
Like I said, a dozen reasons that have nothing to do with where we print.
For reasons I don’t understand, the T-S doesn’t seem to be in the business of printing other papers.
Seems like if you own a web press, you’d want it to be running as much as possible.
Jack:
The ER’s printing press entity, Western Web, now has all the Times-Standard’s commercial printing accounts. And for good reason. The quality at Western Web is oustanding compared to what the Times-Standard’s ancient press churns out. Though the T-S has made some upgrades to improve quality in recent years.
There were several of us little weekly papers printing at the T-S about a decade ago. They announced they didn’t want our business anymore and we left.
I was under the impression they didn’t want print jobs.
However, they were very helpful during emergencies when the guys in Smith River couldn’t print me. Same with Western Web, which now prints the McK Press.
But what about the free market??
Andrew,
The guys in Smith River are running a 1968 Goss. With the right guys working that baby, they can do a really nice job.
Granted, it’s not as good as Western Web. But it’s darn close. If you put two papers side by side, the average Joe might not notice the difference.
It goes to show that there’s more to printing than just the equipment. A master pressman can work wonders, even with old equipment.
But Western Web also offers other printing services, such as the mailing and labeling – including bar coded mailing labels. That saves money at the post office.
It’s a top notch operation.
There is still one Humboldt weekly newspaper (not owned by MNG) that still prints at the Times-Standard.
Ferndale Enterprise? Great paper, but a small print job.
All the evidence suggest that the T-S has no interest in the printing business. Perhaps it’s not very profitable, therefore it makes more sense to keep the press idle rather than bring in a crew to print all the local rags.
I know a little bit about the economics of running a newspaper, but I don’t have a grasp of what it takes to operate a press and make a profit.
Is Jack Davis still over at Western Web? When he was with the long-gone Humboldt Printing for aeons he was a great guy for the jobs I had to deal with, dating all the way back to The Lumberjack.
Jack:
I may be mistaken, but when I arrived here in 2003 I thought the Times-Standard was doing a number of commercial print jobs for publications outside of its ownership umbrella. Again, I may not be remembering this correctly, but I thought Western Web lured away most of those jobs. Western Web offers quality the Times-Standard can’t really match.
I was under the impression that the TS was still printing the Two-Rivers Tribune, formerly the Hoopa People News.
When I was printing with the T-S, three local weeklies were basically told “We don’t want your business. Print somewhere else.”
Jack Davis is awesome.
Odell’s press operation was a trip. At one point one of the hired reps asked us if we’d like a tour, so we went down – the tour began with a speech about the marble floors in the entry lobby, that the guy said were polished every day with diamond dust. He was very impressed with that. And we were very amused. Maybe that mattered to out-of-town clients… there were some amazing things though – the state of the art air-scrubbers and such – it was a very clean-running operations, and they cared a great deal about quality.
It’s good to see printing operations stay local – where’s the ‘buy-local’ crowd on this?
If someone would challenge the fact that the ER’s printing press was built w/o permits that would certainly make this intersting. Local printing ops are great, just comply w/ the law (for once) Rob!
if you can’t beat ’em, sue ’em. it’s the new order.