| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Newspapers |
| Founded | February 1999 |
| Headquarters | San Ramon,California,United States |
Area served | California |
| Products | Daily andweekly newspapers |
| Parent | MediaNews (73.72% owner) Stephens Media (26.28%) |
| Footnotes / references [1] | |
California Newspapers Partnership is a publisher of more than two dozendaily newspapers and severalweekly newspapers in theUnited States state ofCalifornia. The partnership is managed as a subsidiary ofMediaNews Group, its majority owner. The minority partner isStephens Media, with roughly a one-quarter ownership stake.
William Dean Singleton, founder of MediaNews, pushed for the partnership in 1999 as part of his "clustering" strategy of newspaper ownership — owning groups of newspapers in a geographic area foreconomies of scale. For example, he had acquired five dailies in Northern California in the mid-1990s and centralized their operations into one copy and layout desk, and one team for special sections such as sports and features.[2]
In an effort to achieve efficiencies on a larger scale, Singleton offered to pool its Bay Area papers — the Alamedia Newspaper Group — and theLos Angeles Daily News in a partnership with theOntario, California, assets of Donrey Media Group (now called Stephens). A year after forming the partnership, the duo were joined by Gannett, which contributed theSan Bernardino Sun and theMarin Independent Journal.
MediaNews entered into similar partnerships inNew Mexico-Texas andPennsylvania with Gannett, and inColorado withE.W. Scripps Company. In 2015, Gannett gave its stake in CNP to MediaNews successorDigital First Media in exchange for theNew Mexico-Texas andPennsylvania and cash.[3]
As MediaNews remains the largest shareholder in the California Newspaper Partnership, the partnership effectively functions as a subsidiary ofDenver-based MediaNews Group, and a parent to MediaNews' three newspaper clusters in California, theBay Area News Group,Los Angeles Newspaper Group and its Northern California holdings. Those operational clusters include a combination of newspapers owned by the partnership and newspapers wholly owned by MediaNews.
CNP dailies in theBay Area News Group:[4]
CNP dailies in Northern California:[4]
CNP dailies in theSouthern California News Group:[5]