Occasionally, desperate times call for desperate, profitable measures.
The Chicago Tribune Media Group has reached an agreement with Sun-Times Media Productions to print the Chicago Sun-Times and seven of the parent Sun-Times Media's suburban newspapers.
Announced on Tuesday, the printing of Sun-Times Media's newspaper will be moved from the Sun-Times plant on Ashland Avenue to the Tribune's Freedom Center by this Fall, reports the Chicago Tribune.
The Chicago Tribune's Freedom Center prints the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Investor's Business Daily, and with its new additions, it will now produce 15 different titles a day. The Sun-Times' Pioneer Press publications will still be printed by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
In 2007, the Tribune Media Group reached a distribution deal with Sun-Times Media, and their latest agreement effectively takes the Sun-Times out of the print manufacturing and distribution process entirely.
Jeremy Halbreich, chairman of Sun-Times Media, said the deal will save the company more than $10 million a year and will allow investment in editorial content and advertising sales, according to a report by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The relinquishing of print and distribution duties, however, means that Sun-Times Media will be forced to cut several hundred jobs, although some of the layoffs could be offset by the 100 or so jobs to be added by the Tribune.
The Tribune Media Group believes the deal will have no impact on either paper's deadlines or schedules, and the Tribune's Freedom Center plant is likely to be near full staffing capacity during the overnight hours to meet production demands.
