Booth Newspapers

Booth Newspapers, or Booth Michigan, was a media company based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Booth owned eight newspapers in the state of Michigan. Founded by George Gough Booth with his two brothers, Booth Newspapers was sold to Advance Publications (a Samuel I. Newhouse property), which purchased it in 1976 for $305 million, a record at the time.

MLive Media Group
Formerly
Booth Newspapers
Division
IndustryPublishing
Founded1893 (1893)
FounderGeorge Gough Booth & his 2 brothers
Headquarters
Grand Rapids, Michigan
,
United States
Area served
Michigan
Key people
Timothy D. Gruber (president)
Products
ParentAdvance Publications
Websitewww.mlivemediagroup.com

Booth Newspapers owned The Ann Arbor News which ceased printing in July 2009 and was re-established as AnnArbor.com with a Thursday and Sunday newspaper and website independent of the other Booth properties. In 2013 AnnArbor.com joined MLive Media Group, which was established in 2012 as the Michigan brand for Advance Publications. At that time, AnnArbor.com's web presence was integrated with the other Michigan properties under the MLive.com URL and the AnnArbor.com newspaper returned to its historical identity as The Ann Arbor News.

Other MLive Media Group newspaper publications include The Bay City Times, The Flint Journal, The Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, The Saginaw News, and Advance Newspapers. The company also maintains newsrooms in Lansing and Detroit.

All of Advance Publications' Michigan content is published on Mlive.com.

History

Booth Newspapers was founded by George Gough Booth and his brothers in 1893. In 1976, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. of Advance Publications acquired Booth Newspapers for $305 million.[1]

The Herald Company, Inc. merged with Booth Newspapers, Inc. in July 1987.[2]

In September 2002, Booth Newspapers acquired 21st Century Newspapers, Inc.'s Heritage Newspapers' Suburban Flint Newspaper Group which has nine local papers: Clio Messenger, Davison Flagstaff, Fenton Press, Grand Blanc News, Flint Township News, Flushing Observer, Holly Press, Suburban Burton, and Swartz Creek News, and included Suburban Flint Shopper. All of these operate with The Flint Journal as the Community Newspapers.[3]

In December 2006, the Herald Company, Inc. merged with Advance Magazine Publisher, Inc. but continues to operate under the Booth Newspapers name in Michigan.[4]

On November 3, 2008, the day before the 2008 presidential election, many copies of Booth newspapers were delivered inside a white advertising wrapper, paid for by the National Rifle Association, with "Defend Freedom, Defeat Obama" written across the outside. The bags were mostly reported with The Flint Journal, but there were also similar reports from customers of The Saginaw News and The Bay City Times.[5] The Flint Journal posted a short apology on its website that stated that "The wrapper was supposed to be inserted into the newspaper."[6] The Journal also told WJRT-TV, who also received a flood of calls about the incident, that there was "some miscommunication" with the paper carriers.[5] The three papers mentioned endorsed Barack Obama for president.[7][8][9]

On March 23, 2009, Booth Newspapers announced in The Ann Arbor News that it would end the paper's 174-year print run in July 2009, due to economic difficulties, and be replaced by AnnArbor.com, a daily web paper that will have a twice-weekly print edition.[10] Also on this date, Booth announced that beginning June 1, 2009, The Bay City Times, The Saginaw News, and The Flint Journal would reduce publishing to three times a week (Thursday, Friday, and Sunday) while increasing their web presence;[11] the three newspapers would add a Tuesday edition in March 2010, with The Bay City Times and The Saginaw News sharing an edition.[12][13]

On February 2, 2012, Booth Newspapers split into two companies: MLive Media Group and Advance Central Services Michigan. MLive Group handles advertising and news for all newspapers and websites. Advance Central Services handles human resources, production, and distribution. At the same time, home delivery of Booth's remaining daily newspapers was reduced to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays with subscribers receiving e-editions on the other days on which they print.[14]

Also in 2012, Mlive contracted with former WEYI-TV meteorologist Mark Torregrossa to run the website's weather section with the expectation of increasing the section's views from 900,000 to 1 million. Instead by 2014, the section received on average 5 million to 6 million page views with a high in January 2014 of 13 million.[15]

In March 2020, MLive Media Group announced Tim Gruber as the President and Chief Revenue Officer.[16]

gollark: I TOTALLY have no other ways to infer identity from text style.
gollark: Okay.
gollark: Are you attempting to deanonymize someone, beeeseaseeesese?
gollark: If I say something like "bees you, LITERAL apioform (this word is derived from the Latin "apis" and "forme". It is widely used on esolangs) utterly. This is due to bee" where does it split?!
gollark: It's not even a well-defined problem!

References
  1. "Newhouse Acquires Booth Chain Of Newspapers for $305 Million". 9 November 1976. Retrieved 16 February 2019 – via NYTimes.com.
  2. "Booth Newspapers, Inc". DLEG-BCS-Corp Div Database Lookup-Corp Entity Details. Retrieved 2008-04-24.
  3. "Booth Newspapers Acquires Nine Suburban Flint Weekly Papers From 21st Century Newspapers". The Flint Journal. Archived from the original on 2008-07-24. Retrieved 2008-04-14.
  4. "NY State Certificate of Merger" (tif). DLEG-BCS-Corp Div Database Lookup-Corp Entity Details. Retrieved 2008-04-24.
  5. Abraham, Kristen (2008-11-03). "Monday Flint Journal sleeve draws fire". WJRT-TV. Archived from the original on 2011-05-21. Retrieved 2008-11-03.
  6. "Monday's Journal mistakenly placed in NRA-paid plastic wrapper; newspaper apologizes for error". 2008-11-03. Archived from the original on 2013-01-29. Retrieved 2008-11-03.
  7. "Flint Journal endorses Barack Obama for president; Obama more attuned to needs of Michigan". The Flint Journal. 2008-10-30. Archived from the original on 2008-12-02. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
  8. "Editorial: Summarizing our editorial endorsements". The Saginaw News. 2008-11-01. Archived from the original on 2012-09-05. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
  9. "The Bay City Times Election Day 2008 endorsement roundup". The Bay City Times. 2008-11-02. Archived from the original on 2012-09-28. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
  10. "Ann Arbor News to Close in July". The Ann Arbor News. 23 March 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-23.
  11. "The Bay City Times announces big changes". The Bay City Times. 23 March 2009. Archived from the original on 2009-03-27. Retrieved 2009-03-23.
  12. "Flint Journal to return to Newsstands on Tuesdays starting March 23". The Flint Journal. 7 March 2010.
  13. "The Saginaw News to partner with The Bay City Times for Great Lakes Bay Tuesday print edition". The Saginaw News. March 14, 2010.
  14. "Booth Newspapers to focus on Web efforts". The Detroit News. Associated Press. November 3, 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
  15. Marszalek, Diana (June 24, 2014). "MLive Scores Surprise Hit With Weather". NetNewsCheck. Archived from the original on July 2, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
  16. MLive.com (2020-03-02). "Tim Gruber named president of MLive Media Group, comes to company from Michigan.com and Free Press". mlive. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
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