Newspapers Gobble Each Other Up to Survive Digital Apocalypse
- More than $800 million in deals seen last year, most since '08
- Pressure to merge grows as U.S. publishers divest TV assets
Sections of the Washington Post travel on a conveyor at the newspaper production facility in Springfield, Virginia, U.S., on Friday, July 12, 2013.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Newspapers have settled on a strategy to stop withering away: feast on each other for survival.
For the owners of big-city dailies like the Chicago Tribune and Denver Post, buying smaller publications and slashing costs has become a way to buy time while figuring out how to make more money online. That was the logic behind the recent failed attempt by Tribune Publishing Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, to buy two Southern California newspapers.