Daily Transcript gets new life
The Daily Transcript, which is scheduled to cease publication next Tuesday following a 130-year run, will live on, thanks to the purchase of its name and masthead by the Los Angeles-based Daily Journal Corp., the newspaper announced Thursday.
While the Daily Journal did not buy the newspaper company itself, its purchase means it will be able to put out a print publication under the name of The Daily Transcript and as part of that, publish “public notice advertising,” explained Transcript Publisher Robert Loomis.
The Daily Journal Corp., which operates small business and legal newspapers in California and Arizona, has hired four Transcript reporters and is expected to publish its first version of the new Transcript on Wednesday, Loomis said. Meanwhile, the Transcript’s website, sddt.com, will continue indefinitely as the company searches for someone to buy the domain name and continue to operate the online site.
“What we are doing is going forward with the website, we held that back,” Loomis said. “The majority of our revenue has come from the digital side of the house for the last couple of years, and when the decision to shut down was made, we had 6,000 paid web subscribers, and 1,500 subscribers to the paper. Our entire strategy for years has been to gradually eliminate the print side and go just to the web.”
Daily Journal President Gerald Salzman declined to comment Thursday on the sale because “we are still making our plans.” Salzman’s formal announcement of its purchase also mentioned that it will also maintain a website known as sdtranscript.com.
Loomis said the Transcript, long known as a business-focused newspaper, is still retaining, for the time being, close to 50 staff members, down from 70. The company is also shopping the building it owns, as well as a parking lot across the street. It did not sell its web subscribers nor its digital archives but among the assorted assets the Daily Journal did buy were the bound volumes of the newspaper dating back to 1970, Loomis added.
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