Contra Costa Times

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The Contra Costa Times is a daily newspaper (circulation 106,000 daily, 113,00 Sunday) 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, giving it a combined circulation of 183,000 daily and 190,000 Sunday -- making it the 67th largest newspaper in the United States and the 3rd largest in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned by The McClatchy Company, which plans to sell it to MediaNews Group.

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)).

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 purchased by Sacramento-based McClatchy 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. However, on June 12 2006, federal regulators from the U.S. Department of Justice have asked for more time to review the purchase, citing possible anti-trust concerns over MediaNews Group's ownership of other newspapers in the region.

External links

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