CPI adds Republic Monitor to its Missouri holdings

by Paul Schreiber

SBJ Reporter

pschreiber@sbj.net

Newspaper and printing enterprise Community Publishers Inc. of Bentonville, Ark. is adding an eighth Missouri newspaper to its roster.

On Jan. 5, CPI will take over ownership and operation of the 109-year-old Republic Monitor, a weekly newspaper. The Monitor has been operated since 1985 by the Republic Publishing Company, a corporation owned by Sumner Newspapers Inc., said Darren Sumner, co-owner of Sumner Newspapers and publisher of the Aurora Advertiser.

"We're not buying the corporation Republic Pub-lishing Inc.; we're just buying the asset of it," said Steve Trolinger, president of CPI. "There's two ways you can do it. You can do a stock purchase or an asset purchase, and we're doing an asset purchase." He would not disclose the purchase price.

CPI is purchasing the equipment and furniture necessary to the Monitor's operations, such as computers, desks and cameras, and the "morgue" of back issues, Sumner said. No real estate was involved in the deal.

Purchase rationale

The Monitor is the eighth link in a chain of CPI community newspapers encircling Springfield. "So I guess this makes us more of a doughnut than a croissant, and it enables us to close up a little bit of that hole on the west side," said Dave Berry, vice-president with CPI and publisher of its Missouri newspapers.

The total paid circulation of CPI's Missouri newspapers, plus the Monitor, is about 37,000, Trolinger said.

These papers serve Cedar, Polk, Dallas, Webster and Christian counties primarily, he added.

"Year over year, we're experiencing some growth," Berry said of CPI's Missouri holdings. "The (paid) circulation for (CPI's) Missouri newspapers overall in 2003 was a 12 percent increase over 2002," he added, "and revenue would be very similar to that."

CPI also owns 12 newspapers in Arkansas three dailies and nine weeklies.

Paper changes

The only change Trolinger anticipates with the purchase is shifting the printing of the paper from the press at the Aurora Advertiser, 226 W. Church, to CPI commercial printing division's $6 million Springfield plant, Missouri Color Web, at 3901 E. Mustard Way. That transition is to take place in January.

Beyond that, the paper will remain under the direction of publisher Greg White, who will become the paper's general manager under CPI. The editor is Ronnie Wachter. "The general managers are the people who make it go on a local level," Berry said.

Consolidating operating procedures is a CPI objective. "The focus of our company is to let each newspaper reflect its own community on the news pages. What we try to cookie cutter is the software, the technology that we all use and the methods that we all use in the business and finance and on the advertising side," Berry said. "The editorial direction is determined at the local level."

The Monitor is published each Thursday and produced in its offices at 417 Highway 60 East. It employs four full-time employees and one part-timer and has a paid circulation of 3,000, Sumner said.

Any change of the Monitor's physical address is yet to be decided, Berry said, pending a lease agreement.

On Nov. 1, Harold Hedrick, owner and president of Hedrick Equipment Rental, bought the building where the Monitor is published. Pending lease arrangements with CPI and space requirements for the paper, it is uncertain whether the Monitor will remain at its current address, Hedrick said.

Printing changes

All seven of CPI's Missouri papers are printed at Missouri Color Web, Berry said, with Republic to be added in January.

Of CPI's approximately 210 employees, about 40 work the presses at Missouri Color Web, Trolinger said.

The movement of the Monitor's printing tasks to Missouri Color Web will impact the bottom line of the press now printing the paper, that of the Aurora Advertiser, Sumner said. The account, which ran about $35,000 a year, was probably the third largest for the press, he added.