- Contra Costa Times
-
Contra Costa Times 
Front page of the
Contra Costa TimesType Daily newspaper Format Broadsheet Owner MediaNews Group Publisher David Rounds Editor Kevin Keane Founded 1947 Headquarters 2640 Shadelands Drive
Walnut Creek, California 94598
United StatesCirculation 168,362 Daily
180,440 Sunday[1]ISSN 0192-0235 Official website ContraCostaTimes.com The Contra Costa Times is a daily newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, U.S.. The paper serves Contra Costa and eastern Alameda counties, in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Times also publishes four other editions under different titles (West County Times, East County Times, San Ramon Valley Times, and Valley Times) but essentially the same content, serving distinct communities within its circulation area. In 2007 the Contra Costa Times was merged with ANG Newspapers to form a new entity called Bay Area News Group-East Bay, which is in turn owned by MediaNews Group. It is currently published as an edition of the San Jose Mercury News.
The newspaper is scheduled to be closed down with the last issue of the paper to be published on November 1, 2011 as the The Contra Costa Times, San Ramon Valley Times, East County Times, Tri-Valley Herald and San Joaquin Herald are scheduled to publish their last editions on November 1, 2011. The following day, subscribers will get copies of the new The Times, a localized edition of the Mercury News.[2]
Contents
History
The original Contra Costa Times was founded by Dean Lesher in 1947, and served central Contra Costa, especially Walnut Creek. However, Lesher began expanding by purchasing weekly newspapers in neighboring communities, as well as two eastern Contra Costa daily papers, the Antioch Ledger and the Pittsburg Post-Dispatch. Originally the weekly newspapers were free shoppers, but Lesher gradually converted the papers to "controlled circulation" in 1962, an aggressive and expensive new strategy that called for free delivery of a copy to every household while asking readers to voluntarily buy subscriptions. Ultimately, the weeklies were converted into zoned daily editions called the West County Times (serving Richmond, El Cerrito, and western Contra Costa County), San Ramon Valley Times (serving the suburbs of the San Ramon Valley south of Walnut Creek) and the Valley Times (serving Livermore and the suburbs of eastern Alameda County), and the two East Contra Costa dailies were merged into a single edition, the Ledger-Dispatch, which gradually faded away, first being reduced to a thrice-weekly insert in the Contra Costa Times, then being replaced outright by the East County Times.
The Times still produces 11 weekly community newspapers focusing on local news: Brentwood News (Brentwood, the town)), Walnut Creek Journal (Walnut Creek), Concord Transcript (Concord), Lamorinda Sun (Lafayette, Moraga, and Orinda), Pleasant Hill/Martinez Record (Pleasant Hill and Martinez), West County Weekly, and the components of the old Hills Newspapers chain (The Montclarion (The Oakland hills neighborhood of Montclair), The Piedmonter (Piedmont), Alameda Journal (Alameda), Berkeley Voice (Berkeley), and El Cerrito Journal (El Cerrito)).
Corporate ownership
Lesher died May 13, 1993. On August 29, 1995, his widow Margaret sold the privately held company to the Knight Ridder newspaper chain for $360 million. Knight Ridder was later purchased by the Sacramento-based McClatchy Company in June 2006 in a deal valued at $4.5 billion. The deal was contingent on McClatchy selling off 12 of the 32 newspapers it had just purchased, including the Contra Costa Times.
On April 26, 2006, it was announced that MediaNews Group, headed by William Dean Singleton, would purchase four of the "orphan 12," including the Contra Costa Times and San Jose Mercury News, for $1 billion. Although that transaction was completed on August 2, 2006, a lawsuit claiming antitrust violations by MediaNews and the Hearst Corporation had also been filed in July 2006. The suit, which sought to undo the purchase of the four newspapers, was scheduled to go to trial on April 30, 2007. While extending until that date a preliminary injunction preventing collaboration of local distribution and national advertising sales by the two media conglomerates, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston on December 19, 2006 expressed doubt over the legality of the purchase.[3] On April 25, 2007, days before the trial was scheduled to begin, the parties reached a settlement in which MediaNews Group preserved its acquisitions.[4]
References
- ^ "2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation" (PDF). BurrellesLuce. 2007-03-31. http://www.burrellesluce.com/top100/2007_Top_100List.pdf. Retrieved 2007-05-30.
- ^ Bay Area News Group. "Area News Group announces rebranding plan". Contra Costa Times. http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_18740021?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com. Retrieved 24 August, 2011.
- ^ Egelko, Bob (2006-12-20). "Hearst-MediaNews ruling extended". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/12/20/BUGNPN2PGU1.DTL&type=business. Retrieved 2007-01-05.
- ^ Egelko, Bob (2007-04-25). "Hearst, MediaNews Group settle Reilly suit". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/25/BUG01PF68G7.DTL. Retrieved 2007-05-31.
External links
- Official website
- California Newspaper Hall of Fame, Dean Lesher
- Knight Ridder buys Contra Costa Times
- "Feds ask more time to look at sale of four KR papers"
- "Contra Costa Times to outsource customer service"
Categories:- Concord, California
- Newspapers published in California
- Newspapers published in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Media in Contra Costa County, California
- MediaNews Group publications
- Publications established in 1947
- Media of Richmond, California
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
