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Village Voice of New York City to Buy L.A. Weekly : Newspapers: No staff or journalistic changes are planned for West Coast tabloid, publisher says.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Village Voice, New York’s oldest and most respected alternative newspaper, said Wednesday it will purchase its younger Los Angeles counterpart, the L.A. Weekly.

David Schneiderman, publisher and president of the liberal and opinionated New York weekly, said the owners of the two publications have signed a letter of intent and “intend to close the deal within the next month or so.”

Schneiderman refused to disclose the price. However, a source close to the negotiations who requested anonymity put the figure at $10 million. The Voice has reportedly been wooing the L.A. Weekly for years.

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Schneiderman also said there are no plans for any staff or journalistic changes at the Los Angeles tabloid, and that he intends to work closely with L.A. Weekly publisher Michael Sigman.

“I will spend about one week per month with Mike in Los Angeles after the deal is signed, to figure out what his needs and goals are. We’ll learn from each other.”

The Voice, as it is known in Manhattan, was founded in 1955 by a group that included novelist Norman Mailer. It has a paid circulation of 157,385 and an urban following around the country. Its editorial voice, however, remains that of New York’s Greenwich Village, where its name originated.

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The paper was sold in 1970 to prominent New Yorker Carter Burden, who sold it to magazine editor Clay Felker in 1974. Publishing tycoon Rupert Murdoch bought the paper in 1977 and sold it in 1985 for $55 million to current owner Leonard Stern, head of the privately held Hartz Mountain Co., whose businesses include the manufacture of pet products.

Though the Voice was reported in 1988 to be in negotiations to acquire the Chicago Reader chain, one of the largest among the alternative press, this is the first time that the oversized New York tabloid--original home of cartoonist Jules Pfeiffer, journalist Nat Hentoff and various left-leaning literati--has ever purchased another publication, Schneiderman said. Ironically, the Voice’s acquisition comes just a year after L.A. Weekly editor Kit Rachlis--himself the former executive editor of the Voice--was fired by the Weekly’s Sigman for making the paper “too intellectual, too serious,” Rachlis said then.

However, Sigman, 45, publisher of the L.A. paper since 1984 and president since 1993, Wednesday pronounced himself “delighted about all this. . . . It’s a great strategic partnership. They were interested in us and vice versa. One really exciting thing is that we can work together to sell more national and entertainment advertising than either of us was previously getting.”

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The L.A. Weekly, with a current circulation of 175,000, was founded in 1978 in a rented bungalow on Sunset Boulevard by journalist Jay Levin, who became its first editor and publisher.

Levin, who had been editor of the now-defunct L.A. Free Press, was among a group of founding owners that has remained relatively stable. Sigman says the Weekly “has been privately held by almost the same group since it began.” Actor Michael Douglas was one of the paper’s earliest investors and remains one of its largest shareholders.

The Weekly, which is distributed free, started as a tabloid and burgeoned into an ad haven for a seemingly endless array of love merchants, healers, and entertainments. Journalistically, it has ranged over the years from serious and high-minded to superficial and chic--and then back in the other direction. Like the Voice, it has maintained a political stance to the left of center. It has also won journalism awards for excellence.

The Publications

L.A. WEEKLY

* Founded: 1978

* Sales: Estimated at $12 million in 1993

* Profit: Estimated at between $500,000 and $1 million a year

* Circulation: 175,000

VILLAGE VOICE

* Founded: 1955

* Sales: An estimated $23 million in 1990, the latest year for which estimates were available

* Profit: Not available

* Circulation: 157,385 (paid)

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