Friday, February 27, 2009

R.M.N - R.I.P. -- Rocky Mountain News

Sad news from Denver. The Rocky Mountain News, which would have celebrated its 150th anniversary in April, published its last issue today.

Denver was one of the few remaining two-paper markets. Now it has the Denver Post, which should break-even, experts said, although it will have higher operating costs (since it had split back office costs with the RMN, not be confused with Richard Milhouse Nixon).

For now, other two-paper markets include New York, Los Angles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Detroit, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

But the Los Angeles Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and both Detroit papers are owned by holding companies that have declared bankruptcy, have declared bankrupty itself, had the parent company announce a deadline to sell or close the paper, or cut back its publishing schedule.

That doesn't include buyouts at the Boston Globe, financial machinations at the New York Times.

Meanwhile, here's a very moving look at the final edition of the Rocky: Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

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