Circulation Drop Behind Merger Plan : Publishing: Like many evening papers, the San Diego Tribune has been losing readers for years. Combining it with the more successful Union had become, for owners, the ‘most logical’ choice.

As is the case at many evening newspapers around the country, the San Diego Tribune spent more than a decade fighting to regain lost circulation.

But the battle has been difficult, and the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation show that the Tribune--San Diego County’s circulation leader until 1966--has 116,694 readers, far below the morning Union’s 271,068.

It was the paper’s stagnating and then declining circulation, analysts said Wednesday, that prompted La Jolla-based Copley Press Inc. to announce Wednesday that it will fold the Tribune into the Union early in 1992. Copley Press also publishes the Outlook in Santa Monica, the Daily Breeze in Torrance and the News-Pilot in San Pedro, as well as several other newspapers throughout the country.

The new newspaper, to be called the San Diego Union-Tribune, will combine the most popular features and incorporate employees from both newspapers, according to a statement Wednesday by Copley Newspapers.

Although Union and Tribune executives acknowledged that the merger will eliminate jobs, they declined to say how many employees will be let go because of the merger. The two newspapers have 1,875 employees.

The decision to merge the two papers was made Friday, said Herb Klein, editor-in-chief of Copley Newspapers. Besides the merger plan, Copley Newspapers had been considering a new format, or design, in an attempt to resuscitate the Tribune.

But, with circulation continuing to dwindle, the merger “appears to be most logical,” Klein said.

With the merger, the Tribune will become the latest in a long line of evening newspapers to disappear because of falling circulation and competition from increasingly dominant morning newspapers.

The Tribune has been undermined by “changing reading habits,” Copley Newspapers Chairwoman Helen K. Copley said Wednesday. “Meanwhile, the San Diego Union has shown major growth annually in the morning field.”

Many large-city newspapers have been unable to attract and retain readers who lack the time to read an evening paper.

And, like their morning counterparts, many evening newspapers have been undermined by competition from local and national television news.

For more than two decades, the number and circulation of morning newspapers nationwide has been rising, while the number of evening papers has tumbled. Evening newspapers still outnumber morning papers by a wide margin. But those papers generally are found in smaller towns, and only one of the nation’s top 25 newspapers is published solely in the afternoon.

In the past two years, at least 35 daily morning and evening newspapers have suspended publication or merged with other papers, according to figures supplied by the American Newspaper Publishers Assn.

The consolidation of the two papers actually began in 1928 when the Copley family acquired the two San Diego newspapers. While the two newspapers have remained feisty competitors when it comes to news and editorials, they long have shared a common office building in Mission Valley, along with printing, advertising and circulation departments.

Early in 1992, the papers will combine editorial departments and other functions that previously had remained separate, Copley said.

The merger reflects another trend in the newspaper industry: Companies that own two newspapers in the same market increasingly are consolidating them and doing away with the afternoon papers. The decision is economic: companies can quickly cut their costs, and, in many cases, enjoy stronger revenue in the long term.

“There are a dwindling number of commonly owned morning and evening newspapers in the U.S.,” said John Morton, a Washington-based newspaper analyst. “Clearly, the era of the commonly owned morning and evening is coming to a halt.”

Although commonly owned papers still compete with each other in cities such as Phoenix, Indianapolis and Milwaukee, Morton said that “at some point, the evening paper becomes a drag on the financial performance. And, if you allow that to go on for a long time, it can become a real economic burden.”

That was the case earlier this month when Media General Inc. announced that it will stop publishing the Richmond News Leader in May, 1992 and incorporate that newspaper’s resources into the morning Richmond Times Dispatch.

“We decided we can no longer afford the luxury of competing against ourselves,” Media General Chairman J. Stewart Bryan III said when he announced the News Leader’s demise.

Copley on Wednesday said that, for too many years, “we have competed against ourselves.”

Klein tied the Tribune’s circulation problems to the same problems that have chased evening papers out of other large cities. “We’re one of the last independent companies that continues with two papers with competitive staffs,” Klein said.

Analysts said the Tribune survived as long as it did because it remained popular among San Diego’s large retirement community and the county’s blue-collar work force, including Navy personnel.

“San Diego has the kind of community that helps support an afternoon paper,” Morton said. “But, while they might not be losing money yet (on the Tribune), it’s probably just a matter of time.”

But Klein said that the demographics of the morning Union and the afternoon Tribune had grown very similar in recent years, and that the loss of blue-collar readers was not as important a factor as it had been.

Copley Newspapers’ decision to blend the two newspapers “makes sense in this kind of economic environment,” said Paul W. Salazar, an industry analyst with Crowell Weedon in Los Angeles. “It’s a very tough advertising environment, and if you can’t do much about your revenues you can control costs . . . and when you do get an upswing, with this kind of cost control, you could see a very positive (profit) upswing.”

The merger “reflects the changing readership patterns of declining afternoon newspaper circulation,” said Phyllis Pfeiffer, general manager of The Times’ San Diego County Edition. “We’re saddened to lose a newspaper voice and concerned about the possibility of people losing jobs.”

Pfeiffer declined to comment on whether the merger would prompt The Times to bolster its marketing campaign in San Diego County.

Although company officials declined to comment on the timing of Wednesday’s announcement, some observers suggested that the merger will allow Copley Newspapers to address a number of problems with one bold move.

Merging the two papers eliminates the need to acquire more newspaper presses, one observer said. Another observer noted that the merger might be timed to coincide with the expiration in April of a San Diego Newspaper Guild contract.

Klein downplayed speculation about why the Tribune is being merged into the larger Union, arguing that it is simply a matter of numbers.

Newspaper analysts declined to speculate on whether the merger will make the combined paper a more appealing property should Copley Newspapers subsequently offer it for sale, as has often been rumored.

Local Guild President Ed Jahn declined to comment on what action the union might take about possible layoffs. But he said Wednesday that the Union and Tribune’s Guild members “have a contract in place. . . . Our employees do have job protection and security. We intend to ensure that these rights are upheld.”

Jahn also noted that Helen Copley has “in the past indicated her concern, her sincere concern about the livelihood of the employees.”

Tribune and Union employees “sincerely mourn the loss of an editorial voice,” Jahn said. “This is never a good thing for a community or the employees who have invested their careers.”