About the Partnership
Detroit Media Partnerhip | Detroit Free Press | The Detroit News
Gannett | MediaNews Group
Detroit Media Partnership
Detroit Media Partnership, L.P. manages the business functions of the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News. As the largest newspapers in Michigan, with two of the largest Web sites in the market, the Free Press and The News combine to reach a weekly audience of 2.1 million people; 56% of adults in this market see our products.* Detroit Media Partnership is also the advertising sales agent for the following suburban Detroit publications: Observer & Eccentric and Mirror Newspapers, Novi News, Milford Times, Northville Record, South Lyon Herald and Livingston County Daily Press & Argus. Gannett Co., Inc., owner of the Free Press, is the general partner in DMP; MediaNews Group, owner of The Detroit News, is the limited partner.
*SOURCE: 2008 Scarborough Report - Detroit DMA
Detroit Free Press
On Thursday, May 5, 1831, a weekly newspaper called The Democratic Free Press and Michigan Intelligencer was first published by Sheldon McKnight. The name was shortened to The Detroit Daily Free Press in 1835. Free Press offices were nearly destroyed three times by fire before 1852, the year Wilbur F. Storey bought the newspaper. In 1853, the Free Press became the first U.S. newspaper to publish a Sunday edition. Under the ownership of William Quinby, the Free Press published the first supplement for women readers, called Household, in 1878. In 1881, the newspaper achieved an international reputation when it began publishing a London edition.
John S. Knight purchased the Free Press in 1940. In 1974, Knight Newspapers Inc. merged with Ridder Publications, Inc. in the largest newspaper company merger ever. The Free Press was bought by Gannett Co., Inc. in August 2005.
As Michigan's oldest newspaper, the Free Press is renowned for excellence. The Free Press has won eight Pulitzer Prizes in Reporting, Public Service, Editorial Writing, Local Reporting, General or Spot News Reporting and is a three-time winner in Feature Photography. The first Pulitzer was awarded in 1932 for General Reporting and the most recent in 1990 for Feature Photography.
In 2007, the Free Press and freep.com became the first newspaper-produced Web site to win a national Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for video coverage of Michigan National Guard units in Iraq. The Free Press won two more national Emmys in 2008 for videos on freep.com.
The Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Michigan and the sixth-largest Sunday newspaper in the United States. More than 4 million visitors come to our Web site each month, and freep.com has attracted as many as 3.8 million page views in a single day and more than 50 million in a single month.
The Detroit News
The Detroit News has a rich history, dating back to its founding in 1873 by James Scripps. His descendants owned the newspaper until 1985.
Scripps founded what was first known as The Evening News, a gritty penny newspaper designed to compete with the town's more high-brow establishment newspapers. It became The Detroit News in 1906. The newspaper absorbed the Detroit Tribune in 1919, the Detroit Journal in 1922 and the Detroit Times in 1960. It was engaged in one of the nation's great newspaper wars with the rival Detroit Free Press until 1989, when a joint operating agreement was put in place to assure the long-term survival of both newspapers.
The Detroit News building is an historic site, erected in 1917 and designed by famed architect Albert Kahn, who added beautiful arched windows at street level to let in light. Those windows were bricked in after the 1967 Detroit riots, and were restored a decade ago.
Today, The Detroit News is owned by Denver-based Media News Group, which purchased the newspaper from Gannett Co. Inc. in August 2005.
Gannett
Gannett Co., Inc. - the largest newspaper publisher in the United States - is a leading international news and information company, publishing 85 daily newspapers in the U.S., including USA TODAY, and nearly 900 non-daily publications. Along with each of its daily newspapers, the company operates Web sites that are customized for each market served and integrated with its publishing operations.
Newspaper publishing operations in the United Kingdom, operating as Newsquest, include 17 paid-for daily newspapers, approximately 300 weekly newspapers, magazines and trade publications, locally integrated Web sites and classified business Web sites with national reach. Newsquest is the second largest regional newspaper publisher in the U.K.
In broadcasting, the company operates 23 television stations in the U.S. with a market reach of more than 20 million households. Each of these stations also operates locally oriented Internet sites offering news, entertainment and advertising content, in text and video format. Through its Captivate subsidiary, the broadcasting group delivers news and advertising to a highly desirable audience demographic through its video screens located in elevators of office towers and select hotels across North America.
Gannett's total online U.S. Internet audience in January 2008 was 25.8 million unique visitors, reaching about 15.9% of the Internet audience, as measured by Nielsen//NetRatings.
Complementing its core publishing and broadcasting businesses, the company made several advances in its digital strategy through key business acquisitions. These include PointRoll, which provides online advertisers with rich media marketing services; and Schedule Star, a company that manages HighSchoolSports.net, an online site serving the high school sports audience, and manages the Schedule Star solution for athletic directors. Also enhancing our digital strategy are its investments and partnerships in such companies as CareerBuilder, for employment advertising; Classified Ventures, for autos and real estate ads; Metromix, a platform for local entertainment Web sites; Topix.net, a news content aggregator; ShopLocal, a provider of online marketing solutions for local, regional and national advertisers; 4INFO, a leading mobile media and advertising company; ShermansTravel, an online travel service; and more.
Gannett was founded by Frank E. Gannett and associates in 1906 and incorporated in 1923. The company went public in 1967. It reincorporated in Delaware in 1972. Its more than 230 million outstanding shares of common stock are held by approximately 8,900 shareholders of record in all 50 states and several foreign countries. The company has approximately 46,100 employees. Its headquarters are in McLean, Va., near Washington, D.C.
MediaNews Group
MediaNews Group is one of the largest newspaper companies in the United States situated throughout California, the Rocky Mountain region and the Northeast. MediaNews Group entered the Midwest market when it added The Detroit News to its portfolio in 2005. Privately owned, MediaNews operates 54 daily newspapers in 11 states with a combined daily and Sunday circulation of approximately 2.4 million and 2.7 million, respectively. Each of its newspapers maintains a Web site focused on local news content and hosted by its new media division, MediaNews Group Interactive. The company also owns a television station, a CBS affiliate in Alaska, and radio stations in Texas.
MediaNews' corporate mission is to be the leading provider of local news, information and services in its strategically located markets by continually expanding and leveraging news gathering resources. The company proactively identifies and develops strategic partnerships and relationships to enhance its content and services while integrating its content for dissemination across all available distribution platforms, starting with the local newspaper.
Founded in 1983 by current Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman William Dean Singleton, MediaNews Group acquired $350 million in loans to purchase four newspapers from McClatchy Company in 2006. Hearst Corporation owns 31% of MediaNews publications outside the San Francisco Bay area.