Contra Costa Times
Front page of the Contra Costa Times
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Digital First Media |
| Publisher | David Rounds |
| Editor | Kevin Keane |
| Founded | 1947 |
| Ceased publication | April 4, 2016 |
| Headquarters | 2640 Shadelands Drive, Walnut Creek, California 94598 U.S. |
| Circulation | 168,362 Daily 180,440 Sunday |
| ISSN | 0192-0235 |
| Website | Official website |
The Contra Costa Times was a daily newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, U.S.. The paper served Contra Costa and eastern Alameda counties, in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Times also published four other editions under different titles (West County Times, East County Times, San Ramon Valley Times, and Valley Times) with essentially the same content, serving distinct communities within its circulation area. In 2007 the Contra Costa Times was merged with ANG Newspapers to form a new entity called Bay Area News Group-East Bay, which is in turn owned by MediaNews Group.
The final editions of the newspaper under the names The Contra Costa Times, San Ramon Valley Times, East County Times, Tri-Valley Herald and San Joaquin Herald were scheduled to be published on November 1, 2011, however BANG announced on October 27, 2011 that it would retain several of the mastheads and combine the Tri-Valley Herald and San Joaquin Herald, along with the The Valley Times under a new Tri-Valley Times masthead. Other Bay Area News Group (BANG) mastheads to be retained included the Oakland Tribune, Hayward Daily Review, Fremont Argus and West County Times which were to be combined under a new East Bay Tribune title.
On April 5, 2016, the parent company Digital First Media folded the Contra Costa Times into a new newspaper called East Bay Times along with the company's other newspapers in the East Bay.
The original Contra Costa Times was founded by Dean Lesher in 1947, and served central Contra Costa, especially Walnut Creek. However, Lesher began expanding by purchasing weekly newspapers in neighboring communities, as well as two eastern Contra Costa daily papers, the Antioch Ledger and the Pittsburg Post-Dispatch. Originally the weekly newspapers were free for shoppers, but Lesher gradually converted the papers to "controlled circulation" in 1962, an aggressive and expensive new strategy that called for free delivery of a copy to every household while asking readers to voluntarily buy subscriptions. Ultimately, the weeklies were converted into zoned daily editions called the West County Times (serving Richmond, El Cerrito, and western Contra Costa County), San Ramon Valley Times (serving the suburbs of the San Ramon Valley south of Walnut Creek) and the Valley Times (serving Livermore and the suburbs of eastern Alameda County), and the two East Contra Costa dailies were merged into a single edition, the Ledger-Dispatch, which gradually faded away, first being reduced to a thrice-weekly insert in the Contra Costa Times, then being replaced outright by the East County Times.
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