New Times to Purchase L.A. View
New Times Inc. of Phoenix has reached a tentative agreement to purchase Los Angeles View, a 10-year-old weekly newspaper serving the Westside. Terms were not disclosed.
James Sogg, publisher of Los Angeles View, said the deal is expected to be completed next month. The move would give New Times, which already publishes a chain of alternative weeklies in San Francisco, Houston and other markets, a presence in the nation’s second-largest city.
Sogg said New Times will invest heavily in L.A. View, which has a circulation of 75,000. “We brought the paper as far as we could, given our resources,” said Sogg, who founded the paper in 1986 with fellow UCLA graduates Michael Hauser and Spencer Cooper. “It made sense to find another publisher to take it to the next level.”
New Times co-Chairmen James A. Larkin and Michael G. Lacey could not be reached for comment.
The sale underscores the increasingly corporate, centralized nature of alternative newspapers. New Times is now poised to compete directly with LA Weekly, owned by Hartz Mountain of New York, which also publishes the Village Voice.
New Times is also rumored to be in talks to buy Los Angeles Reader. But Reader Publisher James Vowell denied the speculation and welcomed the competition from New Times. “A rising tide raises all boats,” Vowell said.
