RISN Operations
| Private | |
| Industry | Newspapers |
| Founded | January 22, 2007 |
| Headquarters | 508 Main Street, Wilmington, Delaware 19804 USA |
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Key people
|
Melanie Radler, president Roland McBride, vice president |
| Products | The Call and seven other newspapers in Rhode Island |
| Parent | Glacier Media (50% owner) |
RISN Operations Inc., also called Rhode Island Suburban Newspapers, is a privately owned publisher of three daily newspapers and several weekly newspapers in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The company was founded by Illinois-based newspaper executives in early 2007 to purchase the Rhode Island holdings of Journal Register Company, which it did for $8.3 million.
In 2013, RISN acquired the Yuma Sun and the Porterville Recorder from Freedom Communications.
The corporation's first two named officers, Melanie Radler (president) and Roland McBride (vice president and treasurer), were both Illinois residents connected with Conrad Black's former Hollinger International newspaper chain. Radler is the daughter of F. David Radler, a former Hollinger boss; McBride is chief financial officer of Horizon Publications Inc., the company Radler founded after he left Hollinger.
McBride also served as CFO of American Publishing Co., a former Hollinger subsidiary, and was said in an indictment to have aided Black's and the elder Radler's misappropriation of $5.5 million in connection with the sale of some newspaper properties from Hollinger to Horizon.
As of March 2007, the company had not yet announced a local headquarters. Its incorporation papers list a Delaware address.
RISN operates five daily newspapers:
The company also briefly published the Warwick Daily Times, based in the West Warwick newsroom. The Warwick paper had been founded by JRC in 2006 but was folded by RISN in 2007.
RISN's five weekly newspapers, known collectively as Southern Rhode Island Newspapers, are based in the village of Wakefield, part of South Kingstown, Rhode Island. As Journal Register properties, the weeklies managed to avoid circulation slips as sharp as those that plagued the dailies in the early 2000s, but nevertheless have still cut back on staff members, consolidating positions that were once held by multiple people and forcing new responsibilities onto the employees that remain. In the past 16 months, the weekly chains have lost three full-time photographers, two full-time sportswriters and eight full-time reporters. A Providence Journal report said the group's combined weekly circulation of around 13,000 in 2007 was down from 16,140 in 2001.
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