Last 4 Hearst Weeklies in Southland Are Sold
Hearst Corp. has sold four weekly newspapers in the San Fernando Valley to a local competitor for an undisclosed price. The deal takes Hearst, owner of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, out of the small-town newspaper business in California.
The sale marks the end of a strategy in which Hearst tried to entice advertisers by offering them a chance to reach both city and suburban readers in metropolitan Los Angeles through the Herald Examiner and a network of community papers.
All but the Herald Examiner have now been shed. The four weeklies, which have a combined circulation of 109,000, were sold to Independent Community Newspapers, the San Fernando-based publisher of the Independent, a fledgling 28,000-circulation weekly.
The Independent company is owned and operated by Thelma Barrios, 66, who started the paper only last April, two weeks after finishing 28 years of writing, editing and other staff work at the Valley weeklies she has just acquired. Hearst bought the papers in 1981.
Distributed Free
Like the Independent, the four former Hearst properties--the San Fernando Sun, the Sun Valley Scene, the Sunland-Tujunga Record Ledger and the Valley View--are distributed free, making their money only from advertising.
Barrios said the papers will continue to be run out of the former Hearst office in San Fernando. She said she bought them because they are profitable and because she expects them to grow.
“They are established community newspapers, and they have tremendous potential,” she said.
Rick Barrios, her son and the company’s general manager, said the Sun and Independent will merge to become the San Fernando Independent, circulating in San Fernando, Sylmar and Pacoima. He said the other three papers will have “Independent” added to their name.
Gregory Bucci, managing editor of all four papers, said he was told by the new owners that no staff changes would be made immediately, although staffers will be evaluated. The former Hearst papers have 47 employees, the new owners said.
“There’s a certain amount of apprehension in the newsroom,” Bucci said.
Neither the new owners nor privately held Hearst would disclose profit or revenue figures for the weeklies.
Rumors Denied
Hearst’s reasons for selling them, like the sale price, were not disclosed. But Robert Gilliland, chief executive of the Hearst unit that owned the four papers, denied rumors that they were sold because the company is considering the purchase of a competitor, the Daily News, a Van Nuys-based, 145,000-circulation daily owned by Tribune Co. of Chicago.
The Federal Communications Commission has ordered Tribune Co. to dispose of the Daily News 18 months after the Tribune completes its $510-million purchase of KTLA Channel 5.
Hearst has been selling its Southern California weeklies for some time. In August, Hearst sold eight weeklies in southeastern Los Angeles County to the Scripps-Howard chain, based in Cincinnati, for an undisclosed price. Earlier this month, it sold the Tolucan, a 10,000-circulation weekly, for an undisclosed price. The company retains weeklies in Texas and Michigan, a spokesman said.
