Bay Area News Group Consolidates Into 2 Newspapers

The Bay Area News Group announced Tuesday that six of its daily newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area will be consolidated into two: the East Bay Times and The Mercury News.

The East Bay Times will serve Oakland and the East Bay, combining The Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, The Daily Review and The Argus.

The Mercury News will serve Silicon Valley and bring together the San Jose Mercury News – the group’s flagship publication – and the San Mateo County Times.

Subscribers in Oakland, Hayward and Fremont will receive three new community weeklies: The Argus in Fremont, The Daily Review in Hayward and the Oakland Tribune. The Bay Area News Group currently owns 27 weeklies in the South Bay and East Bay.

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BANG will create an East Bay-focused Web site, eastbaytimes.com, to replace the current contracostatimes.com and insidebayarea.com.

The changes will go into effect starting April 5 and were reportedly a response to an extensive survey last fall of BANG’s print subscribers.

“Readers have been quite clear with us about how much they like their newspapers and what they want more of, and we’re changing to serve them better. We’ll give them better focused front page stories that cover national and Bay Area news from each region’s point of view,” Sharon Ryan, president and publisher at Bay Area News Group, told staff in a memo.

According to reports, BANG’s vice president of audience Dan Smith says there will be a modest reduction in staffing.

But SFGate reports that roughly 20% of the news group’s 200 newsroom employees are expected to lose their jobs, some through voluntary buyouts and others in layoffs.

A total of 23 buyouts will be offered to newsroom employees age 60 or older, who have been with their paper for at least 20 years. There are only 30 such employees company-wide. Out of the 23 newsroom buyouts, only five will be offered to reporters. Ten to 20 employees will be fired, according to SFGate.

The organization is focusing reporting in the East Bay, adding coverage of transportation, the environment and local business. BANG will also place new reporting and editing resources in its community news bureaus in Alameda County.

BANG has a daily combined circulation for print and digital subscribers of just under 400,000 on weekdays and 525,000 on Sundays.

The circulation numbers for the papers getting discontinued have dropped in recent years. The San Jose Mercury News - which a decade ago had more than 250K in circulation, now is under 150K. The Oakland Tribune is read by only 20,000 subscribers today.

BANG is also trying to be more responsive to its print and digital audiences by acting on the results of the recent survey. This year, BANG is launching a new video team, expanding its digital advertising operations and later this year will work on redesigning its mobile and desktop websites.
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