Scripps Advances in Battle of Dailies : Publishing: Adding to its Ventura County holdings, the newspaper firm plans to buy the Camarillo Daily News and take full ownership of the Simi Valley Enterprise.
E.W. Scripps Co., jockeying for advantage in the hotly contested newspaper market in Ventura County, said Monday it has tentatively agreed to buy the Camarillo Daily News and to take full ownership of the Simi Valley Enterprise as well as a weekly paper in Moorpark.
Scripps, headquartered in Cincinnati, signed the agreement with Harris Enterprises, a newspaper chain based in Hutchinson, Kan., which owns the Camarillo Daily News and 50% of both the Enterprise and the Moorpark News-Mirror.
The other 50% of both papers is already owned by Scripps, which also owns the Thousand Oaks News-Chronicle and the Ventura Star-Free Press.
Peter LaDow, president of John P. Scripps, the newspaper group that operates Scripps’ papers in California, did not return telephone calls Monday. But editors and reporters at the Star Free-Press and the Enterprise said they were told in a letter that Scripps expected the acquisition to be completed by Sept. 30.
The purchase price was not disclosed, they said.
If the acquisition is completed, Scripps would own four of the five small daily newspapers in Ventura County, with a total daily circulation exceeding 98,000. The other small daily in the county is the Oxnard Press-Courier, a 16,600-circulation afternoon daily owned by Thomson Newspapers, a Canadian-based chain.
The Daily News, a larger paper based in Woodland Hills, and the Los Angeles Times also publish regional editions for Ventura County.
(Separately, Scripps on Monday named John R. Irby, 42, as the new editor of the Ventura Star-Free Press. Irby succeeds John J. Bowman, who has been editor since 1987. Bowman, 55, will become special assistant to LaDow.)
In the letter to employees, Scripps suggested that the acquired newspapers would not be combined with the Ventura Star-Free Press or the Thousand Oaks News-Chronicle. Nonetheless, newsroom workers as well as competitors said they expected Scripps to use the resources from its newly acquired papers as ammunition in the increasingly competitive newspaper market in Ventura County.
“I can foresee them group marketing the papers” to advertisers and readers, said Kirk Davis, publisher of the Press-Courier, which recently invested $13 million in a new press and in recent months has sharpened its rivalry with the larger Star-Free Press.
Next month Davis also plans to launch a free weekly that his troops will toss outside 35,000 homes in the Star’s turf in Ventura. Although the Star declined to comment, Davis declared, “We’re embroiled in a newspaper war.”
Indeed, Scripps’ aggressive move comes amid a struggle among all of the county’s papers to grow at a time when the recession is hurting their circulation and advertising revenue. The battle also reflects the unusual media glut in Ventura County, which is saturated with papers relative to the size of its population.
The county’s readers have a choice of seven dailies. Orange County, by contrast, has more than three times Ventura County’s 217,000 households, according to the 1990 census, yet it has one fewer daily newspaper.
Ventura County is “among the most competitive areas in the country,” said Sam Papert, president of the Papert Cos., a Dallas-based advertising-sales firm that represents 400 newspapers, including the Courier and the Star.
If the deal goes through, Scripps will be acquiring newspapers that have been losing ground. The Camarillo Daily News and the Simi Valley Enterprise, along with the Thousand Oaks News-Chronicle and the Oxnard Press-Courier, saw their weekday circulation numbers drop between 4.6% and 7.2% for the six-month period ended March 31. That is the latest period for which figures are available from the Audit Bureau of Circulations of Schaumburg, Ill.
In contrast, the Star-Free Press’ average paid daily circulation rose 1.2% for the same period. The ABC said six-month circulation figures aren’t available for the Daily News and The Times in Ventura County. But it reported that for the 12-month period ended March 31, the Daily News’ weekday circulation rose by 10% in Ventura County, and The Times’ rose 9%.
Analysts say the newspaper rivalry in the county has been intense since the Daily News in 1989, and The Times a year later, began publishing separate editions in Ventura County. Before the bigger papers put more resources into the area, “everyone generally stayed in their own a back yard,” said Gary Morgan, a journalism professor at Oxnard College.
Since March 31, 1989, the Daily News’ weekday circulation in Ventura County has risen 18%, to 19,134 as of March 31, 1992, with most of its circulation based in eastern Ventura County. The Times saw its circulation in the county climb 16% in those three years, to 45,980. Over the same period, the combined circulation of the five small papers in Ventura County has dropped 3% to 114,770, according to the ABC.
Yet with Ventura County expected to be a valuable market, newspaper companies are not likely to walk away from the fight. Even so, the county’s five small dailies are grappling with the recession. Some of the papers are working with smaller staffs even as they are asked to produce more local news, which publishers believe will increase readership. And to draw advertisers, newspapers are being pressured to offer discounts and other concessions that in the past were anathema.
The Courier’s advertising inch count is down 15% this year, according to Pauline Weaver, the paper’s advertising manager. The Camarillo Daily News also said its advertising volume is down this year, but declined to offer figures. The Simi Valley Enterprise said its ad volume is flat.
Management at the News-Chronicle and the Star Free-Press declined to comment. However, advertising figures from Leading National Advertisers, a New York firm that tracks ad inches of larger newspapers, said that from January to July ad volume at the Star Free-Press rose 2% from a year ago.
Ad volume from January to July increased 3% for The Times’ Ventura County Edition. Volume for the Daily News’ zone advertising in Thousand Oaks and Ventura dropped 3% for the period, according to LNA. The Daily News also publishes a separate section for Simi Valley, but ad figures for that edition were unavailable.
Because of the recession, many local and national retailers have cut their advertising budgets. Some have turned to direct mail or pre-printed newspaper inserts, which are less profitable for publishers than ads that run in newspapers. Yet this has not stopped newspapers in Ventura County and elsewhere from raising their basic advertising rates. Papert estimated that nationally, newspaper ad rates rose an average of 5% this year, and would climb another 4% next year.
“I haven’t seen newspapers lower their rates during the recession,” complained Paul Sevoian, owner of Sevoy International antique stores in Ventura and Tarzana, who has placed advertising in most of Ventura County’s newspapers during the past 20 years. But Sevoian noted that for the first time, local newspapers were becoming “a little more flexible,” giving credits and offering more discounts.
Steve McConnell, advertising director for the Camarillo Daily News, said his promotions include a third day free for buying two days of advertising.
The Simi Valley Enterprise said it has a special group rate for retailers in a shopping center who want to advertise together. Weaver said the Press-Courier charges $13.27 for one column inch of advertising. But for an additional $2.50 per inch, businesses can have their ads run in the Courier, the Ventura Sun--a free weekly--and a weekly shopper the paper owns in Oxnard. Both weeklies will debut next month.
Similarly, advertisers said the Star-Free Press recently began offering its clients a deal that enables them to get ads in its paper and the News-Chronicle and the Enterprise. Analysts said the planned acquisition announced Monday would enable Scripps to broaden such marketing appeals.
To boost circulation, newspapers in Ventura County have begun a variety of subscription discounts, as well as luring readers with cash prizes. The Camarillo Daily News recently began a puzzle contest, giving away $50 daily. Later this month, the Courier plans to launch a $50,000 bingo promotion.
And hoping to increase sales, newspapers nationwide are trying to offer more local news. “They are covering school boards, lunch menus, people news,” said Tonda Rush, who heads the National Newspaper Assn., a Washington group that represents 4,300 community papers. “We print every letter sent to us if they’re not obscene,” noted Tom Pfeifer, managing editor of the Simi Valley Enterprise.
However, newspapers are finding it tough to carry more staff-produced articles, given that the recession has thinned the ranks. While newspapers in Ventura County said they have not imposed layoffs, most reported they maintained a hiring freeze and were not filling jobs vacated by attrition.
Julie Doll, publisher of the Camarillo News, said the paper’s total employment is about 75, down five jobs since January. That includes 17 full-time editorial workers, down two from earlier this year. Pfeifer said the Enterprise’s full-time editorial staff has shrunk from 25 a year ago to 17 now, and its advertising and circulation personnel are also down, managers reported.
The Courier said its total employment has held steady at about 150. Scripps, the parent company of the Ventura Star-Free Press and the Thousand Oaks News-Chronicle, declined to comment on those papers. But in its most recent annual report, Scripps said employment at its 19 newspapers overall was down 5% in 1991 from a year before. The Times said that editorial employment in its Ventura office has been flat, at about 25. The Daily News declined to comment.
While it isn’t clear whether the newspapers’ efforts have in fact boosted overall readership, Davis said the Courier’s circulation has climbed by several hundred in recent months. The Camarillo Daily News said the $50 daily puzzle has helped its circulation. But Andi Hayes, circulation manager at the Simi Valley Enterprise, said the paper’s circulation is down about 600 this year. “A lot of people are moving out of California,” Hayes said.
Indeed, with the sagging economy in California plus intense competition within the industry as well as from television, experts say it won’t be easy for newspapers in the county to increase circulation and ad revenues significantly any time soon.
“The newspaper industry has seemingly recovered from its two-year, historic advertising downturn,” Ken Berents, media analyst with Alex, Brown & Sons, said in his August newspaper survey. But, he noted, “the rebound’s pace remains sluggish at best.” California, he said, “still has its economic wheels stuck in the cyclical mud.”
Times correspondent Kay Saillant contributed to this story.
Ventura County Newspapers and Their Circulation Slump Average circulation as of March, 1992:
% CHANGE % CHANGE NEWSPAPER MON.-SAT. FROM ’91 SUNDAY FROM ’91 Camarillo Daily News 9,910 -5.1% 10,149 -4.5% (owned by Harris Enterprises*) Oxnard Press-Courier 16,604 -5.8% 17,074 -6.8% (owned by Thomson Newspapers) Simi Valley Enterprise 16,120 -7.2% 16,833 -5.9% (50% owned by Harris, 50% by E.W. Scripps Co.*) Thousand Oaks 21,623 -4.6% 22,808 -4.3% News-Chronicle (owned by E.W. Scripps) Ventura Star- 50,519 +1.2% 56,389 +1.0% Free Press (owned by E.W. Scripps)
Circulation figures are daily averages for the six-month period ended March 31, and are the most recent figures available.
*E.W. Scripps has agreed to buy full ownership.
Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations
