CONTRA COSTA TIMES

The '''Contra Costa Times''' is a daily newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California. 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. It is owned by MediaNews Group.

Contents

History

Corporate ownership

References

External links

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 originally 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 affluent 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), ''Contra Costa 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.^[2] On April 25, 2007, days before the trial was scheduled to begin, the parties reached a settlement in which MediaNews Group preserved its acquisitions.^[3]

References

1. 2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation
2. Hearst-MediaNews ruling extended Bob Egelko
3. Hearst, MediaNews Group settle Reilly suit Bob Egelko

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"