Green Bay News-Chronicle
The Green Bay News-Chronicle was a daily newspaper printed in Green Bay, Wisconsin, from 1972 to 2005. It competed with the larger Green Bay Press-Gazette during its entire existence. Its last owner was the Gannett newspaper chain, which is also the Press-Gazette’s parent company.
History
The News-Chronicle started November 13, 1972 as a strike paper against the Press-Gazette and was originally called The Green Bay Daily News. The International Typographical Union, unhappy with the new technology that newspapers were acquiring at that time, such as the change from hot lead to computers, which would cost their membership their jobs, had gone on strike against the Press-Gazette. To make money for the strikers, a newspaper was formed.
From 1972 to 1976, the paper consistently lost money going head to head with the Press-Gazette (both papers at the time were afternoon publications). At one point, the bulk of the newspaper was bought by Victor McCormick, a wealthy local businessman who had a personal dislike of the Press-Gazette. After a 1976 heart attack, McCormick eventually ended his financial support. Being on the verge of bankruptcy and owing one of their creditors enough to have him pull the plug, the creditor--Brown County Publishing Co., a company owned by Frank A. Wood that printed the paper--decided that Green Bay needed two voices in the community and agreed to buy the Daily News.
Renaming it the Green Bay News-Chronicle (the hyphenated name referencing Wood's weekly paper, the Brown County Chronicle), Wood made two very important changes to the paper to distinguish itself from the Press-Gazette: He changed it from an afternoon paper to a morning edition as well as changing the format from a broadsheet paper to a tabloid style, which made it easier to read at the breakfast table. Wood also started to grow a beard, saying he would not shave until the paper turned a break-even month. It took 21 months and a 13-inch beard before there was a profit of $125.81, in November 1977.
Wood also brought along Lyle Lahey, the editorial cartoonist of the Chronicle, to the daily. Lahey stayed with the paper until its closing.
The paper was still losing money when Wood decided to sell subscriptions to bowlers with the promise that they would get much better coverage. Bowlers subscribed en masse, and the News-Chronicle became number one for their bowling coverage. The paper won several awards from bowling organizations for its in-depth coverage of the sport.
By 1987, the paper had just started to make an occasional profit when Gannett (which had bought the Press-Gazette in 1980) started to make life difficult for the News-Chronicle, which had a circulation of 15,000 compared to the Press-Gazette's 100,000. Gannett, with its worldwide presence, could afford to sell their advertising at a much lower price in order to kill competition such as the News-Chronicle. Wood responded by having reporter Richard McCord document that Gannett had done some underhanded tactics to rid their competition in other two-newspaper towns. In November 1989, those findings were printed in an award-winning series called, "It's Now Or Never", which both chronicled alleged abuses by Gannett and things that the News-Chronicle had done to save advertisers money by being in business with the Press-Gazette. McCord later wrote a book about Gannett's abuses and the News-Chronicle series, titled "The Chain Gang."
The series, unfortunately, had also became too successful, as the News-Chronicle was diluged with more subscription orders than it was able to handle at the time (due to financial problems and paying people enough to consider working for them). Many subscribers, unhappy with the service, dropped their subscriptions after they ran out.
The News-Chronicle began a Web site in September 1996, greenbaynewschron.com, getting on the Internet ahead of its competition. As it turned out, the entry was timely, drawing new attention to the newspaper as fans worlwwide followed coverage of the Green Bay Packers' run to Super Bowls XXXI and XXXII.
By 1998, the Press-Gazette was changing from an afternoon to a morning newspaper, causing the papers to once again go directly head-to-head for subscriptions. The larger daily started by changing subscriptions in outlying rural areas to morning distribution, then gradually changing to morning delivery in the Green Bay metropolitan area.
In 1999, the News-Chronicle announced that it would begin a Sunday edition which would be distributed as part of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, requring subscribers to take the Milwaukee paper if they wanted the News-Chronicle's Sunday edition. The move was seen as increasing the visibility of the Green Bay paper. After a few months, the News-Chronicle also sold its Sunday edition separately, and the joint venture started to fade when the Journal Sentinel quit distributing its regular Sunday edition in the Green Bay market, delivering an earlier, less-complete edition.
In 2004, Wood, at the age of 76, finally ran out of steam. His printing operation and other successful weeklies had provided the profits to cover the News-Chronicle's losses. But with a downturn in the printimg market, Wood was in jeopardy of losing his other business interests. On July 23, 2004, Wood announced he had decided to sell the News-Chronicle and his other weeklies to Gannett for an undisclosed price (it has been rumored to be $3.2 million). Wood kept his printing business and an automobile sales publication. Many of his employees were stunned at the announcement, but Gannett had said they would keep everything the way it was for the time being. The News-Chronicle continued to publish but gradually, its circulation and advertising functions were absorbed by the Press-Gazette.
On May 26, 2005, Gannett announced that it was losing too much money with the News-Chronicle and decided to publish its last edition on June 3, 2005. The News-Chronicle had been the longest running "strike paper" in the newspaper publishing history, and the only one to had survived as long as it did since the end of World War II. Most of its remaining employees were offered jobs at other Gannett publications in the area.
References
"It's -30- for the N-C," Green Bay News-Chronicle, June 3, 2005 (reposted at [1]