Local News in Brief : GreenSheet to Merge With Rival Shopper
Tribune Co. reported Tuesday that it has sold its weekly GreenSheet Shopper for an undisclosed amount to Harte-Hanks Communications, which plans to merge the direct-mail shopper with its PennySaver publication.
The sale of the GreenSheet, distributed free to about 433,000 homes, marks the final divestment of Tribune’s publishing operations in the San Fernando Valley. The divestment began in December when it sold the Daily News to businessman Jack Kent Cooke for $176 million.
The daily newspaper, which plans to move most of its offices from Van Nuys to Woodland Hills next spring, was sold as a condition of Chicago-based Tribune’s acquisition of Los Angeles television station KTLA Channel 5. Federal regulations prohibit ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same market.
Harry Buckel, president of Brea-based PennySaver, said the names of the shopping publications will be combined immediately and merging of the businesses will occur by early next year. He said some of the GreenSheet’s 110 employees could be laid off once operations are combined.
The acquisition makes PennySaver the dominant publisher of direct-mail shoppers in the Valley, where about 480,000 copies of the publication are distributed free each week to homes and businesses. PennySaver’s net gain in circulation, Buckel said, will be about 175,000, bringing its total Valley circulation to 655,000. Total PennySaver circulation will be about 2.8 million in Southern California, he said.
Tribune began publishing the GreenSheet Shopper in 1981. The name was derived from the Valley News and Green Sheet, forerunner of the Daily News. The name was changed after Tribune, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News, bought the newspaper in 1973 and changed its publication schedule from four times a week to daily.
The GreenSheet is published by GreenSheet Publications Inc. of Van Nuys. Harte-Hanks, based in San Antonio, Tex., publishes the PennySaver through Harte-Hanks California CDM Inc.
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