Advertising

The Seattle Times Company

NWjobs | NWautos | NWhomes | NWsource | Free Classifieds | seattletimes.com

The Seattle Times

Business / Technology


Our network sites seattletimes.com | Advanced

Originally published March 20, 2009 at 12:00 AM | Page modified March 20, 2009 at 10:57 AM

NEW - Introducing a new blog

Sound Economy with Jon Talton

Veteran financial journalist Jon Talton blogs daily on the most important economic news, trends and issues involving Seattle and the Northwest.

Comments (3)     E-mail E-mail article      Print Print view      Share Share

Seattle Times Company helps Hearst with P-I's online successor

The Seattle Times Co. is providing short-term "consulting and transition services" to The Hearst Corp. to launch the online successor to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which published its last print edition Tuesday.

Seattle Times business reporter

The Seattle Times Co. is providing some help to its longtime rival, The Hearst Corp., as Hearst launches an online successor to its shuttered Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

For its first 30 days, the revamped Seattlepi.com will receive "consulting and transition services" from The Times as part of an accord terminating the joint-operating agreement (JOA) that had linked the two newspapers for 26 years.

The companies have not made the three-page "termination and settlement agreement" public, but a copy was obtained from the office of Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna. Among other things, it says The Times and Hearst won't sue each other in the future over any matter arising from the JOA.

The agreement took effect Tuesday, the same day the P-I's final print edition was published.

The JOA had been scheduled to run until 2083.

The termination agreement doesn't spell out exactly what services The Times is providing to the overhauled Seattlepi.com, which Hearst launched Tuesday with a news staff a fraction the size of its defunct newspaper's.

The Times ran the business side of the Post-Intelligencer's Web site under the JOA. A new Hearst subsidiary assumed those responsibilities this week.

The termination agreement says some of the services The Times is providing are listed in a March 3 memorandum from P-I Publisher Roger Oglesby to Times Co. President Carolyn Kelly.

Neither Oglesby nor The Times would provide a copy of that memo, and a spokeswoman for McKenna said his office didn't have it.

Under the JOA, which provided a partial exemption from federal antitrust laws, The Times and P-I maintained separate news and editorial operations, while The Times handled advertising, circulation, production and other non-news functions for both papers — print and online.

In return, The Times kept 60 percent and gave Hearst 40 percent of any money remaining after The Times was compensated for the papers' combined non-news expenses.

According to the termination agreement, no more cash will change hands between the one-time partners.

advertising

The Times will keep any JOA money still owed to Hearst, pay all the costs it incurs related to termination and provide assistance to Hearst's new Web operation until mid-April without charge.

No dollar figures are provided for any of those expenses.

Earlier this decade, The Times invoked an "escape clause" in the JOA contract, which could have led to the P-I's closure. Hearst filed a lawsuit in response, touching off a four-year legal battle that the companies settled in 2007, with the P-I remaining alive.

A group called the Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town intervened in that fight, and later expressed concern that — despite the settlement — the two companies actually had struck a deal to close the P-I in the future. Both companies denied any such arrangement.

Kathy George, the committee's lawyer, said the group "will be taking a close look at the legal implications of this new [termination] agreement with antitrust concerns in mind."

But the committee also wants the financially troubled Times to survive, she added.

Both McKenna's office and the U.S. Justice Department said earlier this week that the P-I's shutdown and the JOA termination do not violate antitrust laws.

Joint-operating agreements were authorized by Congress in 1970 to keep two or more newspaper voices alive in markets that could support just one.

A total of 27 JOAs have operated since then. With the Seattle contract's termination, six remain that still publish two newspapers.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

More Business & Technology headlines...

E-mail E-mail article      Print Print view      Share Share

Comments (3)
The Committee for Two Newspaper Town can take some of the credit for the possibility this could become a no-newspaper town. You've done...  Posted on March 20, 2009 at 9:31 AM by b0bfr0mb0st0n. Jump to comment
Yes! Well put bobfromboston. Also, pretty sure these are to COMPANIES, who need to make MONEY to survive. The whole idea that there is a group of...  Posted on March 20, 2009 at 1:31 PM by seattlecaphill. Jump to comment
Hope they use a self-service advertising model. You can not expect small businesses to play phone tag just to run a banner on the web!!! This is...  Posted on March 21, 2009 at 9:17 AM by lakeviewforme. Jump to comment


Get home delivery today!

More Business & Technology

RealNetworks makes key play with Rhapsody spinoff

Alaska Air dropping Jones Soda beverages, going back to Coca-Cola

Lots of Buzz over Google latest bid at social networking

Cheaper brands of liquor taste better in tight economy

NEW - 10:04 PM
Dendreon revving up drug plants ahead of FDA decision

Advertising

Video

Marketplace

 
Most read
Most commented
Most e-mailed
 
 

Most viewed imagesMore

Advertising