The Anchorage Daily News held a company wide meeting Tuesday to announce it will be reducing print from 6 days a week to just Sunday and Wednesday, effective June 2.
The company is said to be expecting at least a 20% loss in circulation from the change in addition to the steady 16-19% loss it currently is experiencing each year.
A source told Must Read Alaska that the Sunday print run was just 6,400 copies, while in the 1990s, the Sunday edition was over 100,000 copies.
There will be layoffs and further restructuring in the coming months as a result of the changes, MRAK has learned.
The newspaper was purchased by millionaire Alice Rogoff in 2014. She changed the name to the Alaska Dispatch, the name of an upstart online news organization she had purchased from journalists Amanda Coyne and Tony Hopfinger. Rogoff ran the entire enterprise into the red and finally had to liquidate it as a bankruptcy reorganization.
The Binkley Company, headed by former state Sen. John Binkley, purchased the print and online Alaska Dispatch out of bankruptcy in 2017 and returned it to its former name, the Anchorage Daily News. Rogoff had paid over $30 million for the newspaper, while the Binkley Company purchased it from the bankruptcy proceedings for $1 million. Ryan Binkley, son of John Binkley, became president and CEO and Andy Pennington became the publisher.
The pattern is part of the decline of newspapers across the country. The Juneau Empire reduced its print edition to twice weekly a year ago, as did the Peninsula Clarion. Both are now being printed out of state. The ADN contracted its printing out to the Frontiersman when it changed hands to the Binkleys. It was once a daily newspaper, but has recently reduced print editions to five days a week.
Just last month, the ADN was lobbying the Legislature to preserve the paid public notices in order to slow the decline. Senate Bill 68, recognizing that most newspapers have most of their readers online anyway, calls for publishing the notices in the Alaska Online Public Notice System, by mail, and by “other means as deemed necessary.”
The newspaper has always had a liberal bent, but has become hard-left starting with the transfer to Rogoff in 2017.
This story will be updated as more facts emerge.
