Freedom to Complete Its Colorado Springs Purchase

Freedom Newspapers Inc. is scheduled today to complete the $30-million purchase of assets of its only competitor in Colorado Springs, after the U.S. Justice Department decided not to object on antitrust grounds.

The purchase had been delayed to allow the Colorado Springs Sun time to find another “less anti-competitive bid,” said a Justice Department spokesman. But no other buyer came forth by the department’s March 1 deadline, he said.

Meantime, owner Oklahoma Publishing Co. of Oklahoma City closed the operation last Friday, and Freedom Newspapers executives said they will not resume the paper’s operations nor take on the Sun’s staff.

The purchase covers such assets as the subscriber list, printing presses, the newspaper library and the paper’s name.

Freedom Newspapers, publisher of the Orange County Register, owns the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, a two-edition daily with a combined circulation of 92,000. It is second only to the Register in size among Freedom’s 29 daily newspapers.

The Sun, which has consistently lost money during the past several years, was purchased in 1977 by Oklahoma Publishing for $3 million.