BRIEFS

NewsInc, Feb 7, 2005

*MEG to sell 20% of Denver paper: Media General Inc. said last week that it had agreed to sell its 20 percent of the Denver Post to MediaNews Group, the owner of the remainder of the paper. Under the 1987 agreement to buy the Post, Richmond, Va.-based Media General agreed to give Denver-based MediaNews a one-year call option in 2005 to buy it out. "We're in the one-year window where we have to exercise the option," MediaNews President Jody Lodovic told the Rocky Mountain News. "If we don't do it now, we may never get our opportunity." The companies have not agreed on the terms of the transaction.

*Dallas won't get 2004 audits: The Audit Bureau of Circulations has declined to issue audited reports of the circulation of the Dallas Morning News for the 12 months ending March 31, 2004 or the six months ending Sept. 30, 2004. The bureau said that it believed there were not enough "reliable records" of independent circulation contractors to support the figures of city single copies that the Morning News reported in a revision submitted last week. That revision set the paper's daily circulation down 5.4 percent and Sunday circulation down 11.7 percent and was similar to a projection the paper made in September, about six weeks after it revealed that it had an understatement of distribution.

*Seattle street sales up to 50 cents: The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the two papers circulated by The Seattle Times Co., said last week that they would raise the price of a daily paper on the newsstand to 50 cents; it had been 25 cents since early 2001, following an employee strike. "During the strike period we distributed for free," said Kerry Coughlin, an official with Times Co. "Then after it was over, we went to 25 cents and we decided to hold that as long as possible." Times Co. has said that it has lost money every year since 2000 and is currently in a legal wrangle with the P-I's owner, The Hearst Corp., to determine whether their joint operating agreement should continue. Times Co. officials said in January they planned to cut 110 jobs by the end of March.

*NAA asks court to review media rules: In the wake of the U.S. government electing last month to abandon its defense of media ownership rules that were approved by the Federal Communications Commission but halted by a U.S. District Court, the Newspaper Association of America said last week that it has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the district court's ruling. "The FCC rule changes on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership were based on solid evidence that repealing the outdated rules will greatly serve the public interest in a way that is consistent with the commission's competition, localism and diversity goals," said NAA President and CEO John Sturm.