Tampa Bay Times Buys Tampa Tribune

The Tampa Bay Times said Tuesday it had bought the Tampa Tribune, folding in its longtime rival to form the fifth largest Sunday newspaper in the U.S. based on print sales, the companies said.

Financial terms of the sale weren't disclosed.

The deal, announced Tuesday afternoon, is the latest consolidation move in a fast-shrinking media market, saddled by falling revenues.

"The continued competition between the two newspapers was threatening to both," Tampa Bay Times Chief Executive Paul Tash said in a news release. "There are few cities that can sustain more than one daily newspaper, and the Tampa Bay region is not among them."

The Tampa Bay Times has an average Monday through Friday circulation of 227,000 and sells 368,000 copies on Sunday, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. The Tribune had circulation of 153,000 on weekdays and 234,000 on Sunday.

The Tampa Bay Times, Florida's largest newspaper and previously known as the St. Petersburg Times, said it would continue to run both papers' websites: tampabay.com and TBO.com. Subscribers of the Tribune will begin receiving the Times starting May 4.

The 131-year-old Times, owned by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, has a storied journalism history, including 12 Pulitzer Prizes, one of the most prestigious journalism awards in the U.S.

This year, the Times received two Pulitzers for local and investigative reporting, the latter shared with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune for a joint probe into the violence and neglect at Florida mental hospitals.

The Tampa Tribune had been owned by Media General Inc., which operates a chain of local television states in the southeast. In 2012, it had sold 63 daily and weekly newspapers to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., for $142 million, but retained control of the Tampa newspaper as its only remaining newspaper property.

Write to Maria Armental at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 03, 2016 17:25 ET (21:25 GMT)

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