Tampa Bay Times Buys, Folds The Tribune

The Poynter-owned Tampa Bay Times announced Tuesday afternoon that it has acquired The Tampa Tribune, ending a 29-year competitive battle in the bay region and creating the fifth-largest Sunday circulation newspaper in the nation.

“The continued competition between the two newspapers was threatening to both,” said Times chairman and CEO Paul Tash. “There are very few cities that are able to sustain more than one daily newspaper, and the Tampa Bay region is not among them.”

Tribune subscribers will begin receiving the Times Wednesday. Deep cuts in duplicated functions including in the Tribune newsroom are expected; shortly after the announcement Tuesday, Tash told the Tampa Bay Times at least 100 layoffs are expected.

There are very few cities where two separately-owned general news titles remain, but there are a couple of two-city metros, such as Minneapolis-St. Paul or Raleigh-Durham.

A possible sale or closure of the Tribune has been rumored for several months, since its owner, Revolution Capital Management of Southern California completed the sale of the Tribune building and surrounding land.

The owners of The Tampa Tribune have sold the newspaper to the #Tampa Bay Times. Details: https://t.co/Nf7enqELXT pic.twitter.com/gxWqWNUg4x

— Tampa Bay Times (@TB_Times) May 3, 2016

The sales price was not revealed, accord to Poynter.

The Tampa Bay Times has an average Monday through Friday circulation of 227,000 and sells 368,000 copies on Sunday, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. The Tribune had circulation of 153,000 on weekdays and 234,000 on Sunday.