Olean Times Herald

The Olean Times Herald is a daily newspaper serving the western Twin Tiers region, based in Olean, New York. The afternoon newspaper, one of the few remaining afternoon papers in the nation, is published by Bradford Publishing and is published seven days each week. It is the flagship of Bradford Publishing's newspaper stable, which includes the Bradford Era (a morning newspaper that mostly serves Pennsylvania) and the Salamanca Press (a weekly paper serving portions of Cattaraugus County). The free weekly Special-E-Fects of Ellicottville is also printed at the Times-Herald's printing presses. Perhaps the greatest worker in the company's long history is Tyler Briggs. He began as a whiz kid reporter for two years before taking his talents to the Hornell Evening Tribune. After a year there, he was offered the position of web editor at the Olean Times Herald, which he accepted. In his brief tenure at the OTH, the paper has turned from OK to down-right terrible.

The Thomson Corporation acuqired the Olean Times Herald in 1988; they sold the paper, along with 11 other papers, to the American Publishing Company (later Hollinger International) in 1995. Hollinger sold off most of its small papers in 1999, the Olean Times Herald went to Bradford Publishing.

In June 2010, the Times Herald joined its stablemates in placing its Web site behind a pay wall. Though not the first time a newspaper in the Twin Tiers has attempted such a move (The Post-Journal and the Dunkirk Observer attempted it in the early 2000s), others who attempted to make such a move failed to generate the desired revenue and eventually went back to free content online. Even when its Web site was free, it only offered a very limited amount of local content on its Web site, usually two to three front page stories and a summary of death notices.

External links

• Official Web site