Honolulu will likely join most other U.S. cities with only one daily newspaper after the owners of the smaller Honolulu Star-Bulletin agreed to buy its longtime rival The Honolulu Advertiser.

The agreement for Oahu Publications Inc., which owns the Star-Bulletin and MidWeek, to acquire the Advertiser was announced yesterday in simultaneous meetings in both newsrooms.

“;We're going to go from two papers to one, most likely,”; Star-Bulletin majority owner David Black said.

The sale will lead to layoffs when and if the papers are combined, although the number of layoffs has not been determined. The Advertiser has about 600 employees, with 120 people in the newsroom. The Star-Bulletin and MidWeek have about 300 employees with about 75 in the newsroom.

  Star-Bulletin buys Honolulu Advertiser

 

Agreement was announced by Oahu Publications and Gannett, owner of the Advertiser.

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The sale must still be approved by the Department of Justice, which has asked Oahu Publications owner David Black to put the Star-Bulletin up for sale to see whether a buyer will come forward.

It is the same condition required of Advertiser owner Gannett Co. nine years ago when Gannett attempted to end the joint operating agreement to publish both papers and tried to shut down the Star-Bulletin.

At that time Black stepped forward to buy the Star-Bulletin for $10,000 and, in a separate deal, also purchased MidWeek and its presses.

Both daily papers have struggled since then with the decline in newspaper advertising and the recent recession.

Black said he believes it is unlikely that a buyer will purchase the Star-Bulletin and agree to keep publishing the paper.

“;It's just too expensive,”; Black said. “;We are a long way from breaking even.”;

If a qualified buyer is not found, then the papers will be merged after the sale is completed in the second quarter of 2010.

“;It's a sad day when we can't keep two good papers running in a city of this size,”; Black said.

Bob Dickey, president of Gannett's U.S. Community Publishing, acknowledged the hard work of the Advertiser employees.

“;We have been very pleased and proud to be part of the Hawaii journalism community all these years but felt OPI's offer to buy the Advertiser and its related assets was the right course for Gannett at this time,”; said Dickey.

If no buyer emerges for the Star-Bulletin, the two papers will publish separately for four to six months with the Advertiser operating under a separate, temporary company until the publishing, editorial and circulation departments can be combined, Black said.

The sale and merger will not affect the publication of MidWeek.

A name for the merged daily paper has not yet been determined, although Black said the new name will have elements of both papers.

The new paper will not be a tabloid unless the Advertiser's presses can be adjusted to publish in tabloid format.

Star-Bulletin and MidWeek Publisher Dennis Francis will be in charge of the combined paper.

The merged paper will retain an editorial voice from the Advertiser in the opinion section, Black said.

The Media Council of Hawaii will meet next week to discuss the sale, said Chris Conybeare, president of the council, whose members pushed to keep the Star-Bulletin alive in 1999.

“;We have very serious concerns about losing another editorial voice in our community, especially in light of what's happened in television with the loss of one editorial voice there,”; he said.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann said the deal is a “;sign of the times”; for newspapers.

“;Honolulu has long been well served by two major dailies and alternative voices. The economy, however, has not been kind to the newspaper business,”; he said. “;It shows no one is immune. We hope for the best for all those involved.”;

Negotiations to buy the Advertiser started last year after a discussion with the local owners on the Oahu Publications board on whether to close the Star-Bulletin or invest more money by buying the Advertiser and restructuring, Black said.

“;The board said we would like to keep the investment in Hawaii,”; Black said.

“;Almost everybody on the board is from Honolulu, except me, so it made sense to them to keep an investment here, and I've grown to love it over the 10 years I've been here, so I wanted to do that, too,”; Black said.

Gannett was open to selling the Advertiser if the price was right, he said.

The sale includes the Advertiser press in Kapolei, the Web site, nondaily publications and Gannett's interest in Hawaii.com.

The offices for the merged paper will be at the current Star-Bulletin location in Waterfront Plaza. The Advertiser building on Kapiolani Boulevard is not part of the sale.

The deal comes nearly nine years after Black purchased the Star-Bulletin from Liberty Newspapers Ltd., a Virginia-based company that owned the then-afternoon paper in a joint operating agreement with Gannett, which controlled the printing and business functions of both newspapers.

With Black's purchase of the Star-Bulletin in March 2001, the JOA ended, and Black combined the publishing and business functions of the paper with MidWeek, which he had purchased a few months earlier.