The Baltimore Sun | Baltimore City Paper
The Baltimore Sun Media Group will buy the alt-weekly Baltimore City Paper, the Sun reports.
The move brings together two of the Baltimore area’s most well-known news organizations. The 37-year-old City Paper will operate its newsroom and sales team independently of the Baltimore Sun Media Group’s other editorial and sales functions, the companies said. City Paper, which is published each Wednesday and distributed free throughout the Baltimore area, has a circulation of just over 50,000 a week; about 200,000 monthly unique visitors use its Web and mobile sites.
On Twitter, City Paper’s Joe MacLeod promises next week’s “Mr. Wrong” column will “BE 100% F-WORD”
IT'S A LITTLE EARLY FOR #FF BUT KINDLY CONSIDER FOLLOWING @baltimoresun
— Joe MacLeod (@JOEMACLEOD666) February 20, 2014
Times-Shamrock put Baltimore City Paper and several other alt-weeklies on the block last August. A group called Euclid Media Group bought the Cleveland Scene and three other alt-weeklies in December.
It’s less uncommon for daily papers and alt-weeklies to share ownership these days: The owner of the Chicago Sun-Times bought the Chicago Reader in 2012, for instance.
Related: How can alt-weeklies survive if they’re no longer an alternative? (Poynter) | Alt-Weeklies Struggle to Reinvent Themselves for the Digital Age (MediaShift)
