Here in Portland, the Newhouse family now owns, in addition
to The Oregonian and its various zoned editions, This
Week, The Business Journal, The Argus and
RFD Publications Inc., one of the area's leading commercial
printers.
Back in the early '80s, the Newhouses made their first
key move toward market dominance when they merged Portland's
second daily, The Oregon Journal, into The Oregonian.
On Friday, The Oregonian announced that Advance
Publications Inc. of New York has purchased The Argus,
Hillsboro's twice-weekly newspaper.
The story failed to address a number of central questions--such
as when the transaction actually took place, who arranged
it, and why a New York-based media conglomerate would be
interested in buying a newspaper on the outskirts of Beaverton.
At least the story did not leave out this key fact: Advance
Publications Inc. owns The Oregonian. That may explain
why so much was missing from The Oregonian's coverage
of the sale. It also may explain why the Newhouse family,
which owns Advance Publications, would purchase a small
suburban newspaper to add to its conglomerate of daily newspapers
in 21 American cities, dozens of glamorous magazine titles
(including everything from Vogue and The New
Yorker to Wired and Conde Nast Traveler),
and Business Journals in 35 American cities.
Advance Publications' purchase of The Argus represents
the latest trend in modern newspapering: "clustering."
Clustering refers to a media company's taking control of
as many publications as it can within a single market. The
strategy's most extreme example is Lee Enterprises of Davenport,
Iowa (which owns KOIN-TV here in Portland). The company
now owns nearly half of the daily newspapers in Montana
(giving it 65 percent of the state's daily newspaper circulation),
along with weeklies, shoppers and a state magazine.
The idea is that over time, newspaper operators can use
this strategy to segment the market, achieving substantial
business efficiencies. Clustering has the added benefit
of eliminating the fear of unwanted competition.
Oregonian publisher Fred Stickel has first-hand
knowledge of the difficulties posed by such competition.
In the early 1980s, one of The Oregonian's major
grocery advertisers defected to This Week, an upstart
shopper then competing with Portland's daily for food and
classified advertising. The advertiser's defection not only
cost The Oregonian a pretty penny, but wreaked havoc
as well on Stickel's vacation plans that year.
It wasn't long before Advance Publications purchased This
Week.
The Oregonian's covetous view of Washington County
has been an open secret for years. That interest has intensified
lately, as Portland's daily has conducted extensive market
research and run prototypes of special zoned editions past
focus groups.
Remarkably, The Argus, a rather dreary community
newspaper with a circulation of less than 1/20th The
Oregonian's, has proved a troublesome barrier to the
Newhouses' westward march from Portland. Argus readers
are loyal to their paper and unwilling to switch to The
Oregonian.
With Friday's announcement, Hillsboro is no longer enemy
territory. At the same time, S.I. Newhouse III was probably
right when he told The Oregonian, "The sale...won't
bring changes to the twice-weekly publication"--at least
for now. The new owners want to be sure they don't run afoul
of anti-trust concerns.
Over the longer haul, though, the Newhouses will be able
to do whatever they want to exploit the fastest-growing
part of the Portland metro area.
The purchase of The Argus supports the notion that
Portland's daily paper increasingly perceives its business
future in the suburbs. While it's unclear what this means
for readers in Hillsboro, it has ominous portents for downtown
and close-in Portland. As a result of journalism's version
of suburban sprawl, those of us who care about the heart
of our region are sure to find even less relevant coverage
of serious local news.
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Willamette Week | originally
published November 3,
1999 |
