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‘Seattle Times’ to Help Hearst with Seattlepi.com

Published on March 23, 2009 | Email this article

The Seattle Times, now the sole print newspaper in that city following the collapse of the Post-Intelligencer print edition, will act as a consulting and transition service to Hearst Corp. for the launch of the P-I’s internet-only venture.

The new Seattlepi.com will get consulting and transition services from the Times as part of an agreement that came from the termination of the two groups’ joint operating agreement (JOA) that the companies had engaged in for more than 25 years, according to the Seattle Times. The Times ran the business side of the P-I website as part of the JOA.

Per the new agreement, the two groups have agreed not to sue each other over any matter arising from the termination of the JOA.

Joint-operating agreements were authorized by Congress in 1970 to keep two or more newspapers alive in cities that could support only one. 27 JOAs have operated since then; currently, six JOAs remain in operation, following the termination of the agreement between the Seattle Times and the P-I, and between the Denver Post and the now-dead Rocky Mountain News.

24/7 Wall Street recently predicted the 10 newspapers that would fold next, following the demise of the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Those included the Philadelphia Daily News, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Detroit News and the Boston Globe, among others.

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