The "Megaclustering' Of Local News Isn't New To Colorado

By Corey Hutchins

Recently, newspaper analyst (and soothsayer of the local print apocalypse) Ken Doctor published his latest piece about the industry. In it he charted a course for increased local newspaper “megaclustering” because of what he called “potential-to-likely changes in federal strictures on combined broadcast and print ownership and of changes in antitrust regulation.” What this means: More local newspapers owned by the same company spread over more communities in a larger geographic area. A pro: Maybe sustaining local papers a little longer so they don’t fold. A con: Creating the “one voice” problem.

Doctor points to clusters in New England and in Ohio, but there’s a Colorado angle here, too. From the piece published at The Street:

Megaclustering builds on “clustering.” Newspaper mogul Dean Singleton is most credited with the principle, though sharp observers believe that Thomson Newspaper CEO Stuart Garner may have been earlier responsible. (Garner, interestingly enough, made one of the great killings in newspaper sales, completing the biggest sale of its time, about $2 billion for the Thomson chain in 2000 — at the height of newspaper company value.) Singleton built MediaNews Group Inc. on the clustering principle, and its successor company Digital First Media still operates on that principle in both the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Early on, that meant centralizing printing, personnel and back-office functions for separate — but usually contiguous — newspaper properties in the ’80s. Later, we saw editorial centralization as well.