Florida publisher buys Chicago Reader
BY KATE GARDINER
July 24, 2007 | 10:01 PM
The Chicago Reader announced today it is being purchased for an
undisclosed sum by Creative Loafing, the Florida-based owner of several
alternative weekly newspapers.
The Reader, founded on a lark by students, grew from meager beginnings into one of the country's best-regarded alt-weeklies.
It wasn't for sale, Reader president Bob Roth said Creative Loafing made an offer he couldn't refuse.
"It was steep," said Roth.
Creative Loafing owns four other papers nationally, all under that name. It was not immediately clear whether the Reader will undergo a name change as a result of the deal.
Also included in the purchase is the Washington City Paper. At a staff meeting there, employees were told the City Paper would be keeping its name.
Abe Peck, a professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism said that he thought the merger was ironic, considering the Reader's anti-corporate attitude.
Creative Loafing, he said, might be the right corporate home for the Reader.
"CL's been around for a long time, and it's a good paper," said Peck. "Part of it is what they call in the business scalability. Creative Loafing has six papers with the new one, and so [with] their collective circulation they can run more national ads."
Roth said he and a group of fellow Carleton College students founded the Reader 36 years ago as an "extracurricular project."
Its initial funding came in part from Roth's fellowship money from the University of Chicago.
"We were all spending all our money on the Reader," he said. "We were living six to a big apartment, sleeping in shifts on a mattress on the floor, and taking ownership instead of pay-- in shares, instead of dollars. No one would start a business that way now."
The Reader, founded on a lark by students, grew from meager beginnings into one of the country's best-regarded alt-weeklies.
It wasn't for sale, Reader president Bob Roth said Creative Loafing made an offer he couldn't refuse.
"It was steep," said Roth.
Creative Loafing owns four other papers nationally, all under that name. It was not immediately clear whether the Reader will undergo a name change as a result of the deal.
Also included in the purchase is the Washington City Paper. At a staff meeting there, employees were told the City Paper would be keeping its name.
Abe Peck, a professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism said that he thought the merger was ironic, considering the Reader's anti-corporate attitude.
Creative Loafing, he said, might be the right corporate home for the Reader.
"CL's been around for a long time, and it's a good paper," said Peck. "Part of it is what they call in the business scalability. Creative Loafing has six papers with the new one, and so [with] their collective circulation they can run more national ads."
Roth said he and a group of fellow Carleton College students founded the Reader 36 years ago as an "extracurricular project."
Its initial funding came in part from Roth's fellowship money from the University of Chicago.
"We were all spending all our money on the Reader," he said. "We were living six to a big apartment, sleeping in shifts on a mattress on the floor, and taking ownership instead of pay-- in shares, instead of dollars. No one would start a business that way now."
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