Black Press Group Ltd.
| Private | |
| Industry | Newspapers |
| Founded | 1975 |
| Headquarters | 818 Broughton Street, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada |
|
Area served
|
Alberta, British Columbia, Hawaii, Ohio and Washington state |
|
Key people
|
David Holmes Black, CEO Rick O'Connor, COO |
| Products | Akron Beacon Journal, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, five other daily newspapers and more than 100 weekly newspapers |
| Parent |
David Holmes Black (80%) Torstar (20%) |
| Subsidiaries | Oahu Publishing Company, Sound Publications |
| Website | www.blackpress.ca |
Black Press Group Ltd. is a Canadian privately owned publisher of prominent daily newspapers in Hawaii and Ohio, and numerous non-daily newspapers in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, and the U.S. state of Washington. Black Press is headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia.
It is administered and majority owned by David Holmes Black (no relation to Canadian-born media mogul Conrad Black). The company is 20% owned by Torstar, publisher of the Toronto Star and David Black's former employer.
After working as a junior business analyst for the Toronto Star, Black purchased the Williams Lake Tribune of Williams Lake, British Columbia, from his father, Alan, in 1975. He bought a family-run newspaper in nearby Ashcroft in 1979, and his holdings expanded "exponentially" in the ensuing years.
There was never a big plan to get big. It's just that another opportunity would come over the hill. Usually an independent would phone, wanting to retire or sell out, asking if we were interested in buying them.
Though Black Press has focused its acquisitions mainly on building a province-wide network of community newspapers in British Columbia, and a similar operation (called Sound Publishing) across the border in Washington, the company has also invested in individual marquee daily products. In 2000, Black purchased the Honolulu Star-Bulletin of Hawaii (later merged with the competing Honolulu Advertiser, which Black bought in 2010). In 2006, the company acquired the Akron Beacon Journal, the former Knight Ridder flagship in Northeast Ohio.
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Wikipedia