The owner and publisher of the South County Independent is launching a
sister publication this spring, hoping to squeeze out the region’s
dominant newspaper chain, owned by a New Jersey-based company.
Frederick J. “Rick” Wilson said he’ll start printing the yet-to-be-named
weekly in March, competing directly with two publications the
newspaperman’s family once owned: The East Greenwich Pendulum and The
(North Kingstown) Standard-Times. The publicly held Journal Register
Company of Trenton, N.J. also publishes the weekly Chariho Times and
Coventry Courier, and the twice-weekly Narragansett Times under the name
Southern Rhode Island Newspapers.
In the northern part of the state, it owns The Woonsocket Call and The
Pawtucket Times. The company’s holdings in nearby Massachusetts include
The (Fall River) Herald News and the Taunton Daily Gazette.
Wilson was matter-of-fact about his reasons for publishing another paper
in a saturated marketplace, saying he’s “trying to” put the Journal
Register out of business in the region.
“Basically I’m trying to restore what was there before the Journal
Register came in and basically annihilated the four papers that were
there,” Wilson said.
Wilson called Journal Register higher-ups “a bunch of accountants, not
journalists,” and insisted “they don’t know the community.”
Wilson also gave a practical reason for penetrating new communities. “It
opens an advertising avenue which I’m going to need if I’m to compete ,”
he said.
Wilson was the long-time publisher of all but one of the newspapers
comprising Southern Rhode Island Newspapers, seeing them through three
sets of owners: Wilson Publishing, which started the chain in 1946 with
The Narragansett Times; Capital Cities/ABC, which acquired it from the
family in 1984; and the Journal Register, which bought the lot in May
1995, introducing The Coventry Courier shortly thereafter.
Wilson stayed on as publisher under the Journal-Register only briefly,
resigning within the first six months. He started publishing the
Independent in October 1997, competing head-on with The Narragansett
Times.
Wilson said he’s not intimidated by a national company with revenues of
$305.6 million for the first nine months of last year, according to
Security Exchange Commission filings.
“They’ve got deep pockets but if they have no circulation it doesn’t
matter,” he said.
Wilson put the Independent’s paid circulation at 6,700. That number for
The Narragansett Times is 6,200, according to its circulation
department.
Wilson is pinning his future success on what he perceives as discontent
with Journal Register offerings among readers and advertisers.
“There’s a lot of people who are very unhappy,” he said. “They don’t
like the (East Greenwich) Pendulum or the (North Kingstown) Standard(-
Times).”
As for The Narragansett Times publishing Wednesdays and Fridays,
“there’s a lot of sizzle and no steak,” he said. “It takes 10 minutes to
read the thing. It’s a lousy paper.”
Michael F. O’Sullivan, publisher for Southern Rhode Island Newspapers,
did not return calls for comment.
Wilson predicted a relatively easy time getting his second publication
off the ground. A staff of between eight and 12 people will work out of
leased space at 7610 Wickford Square in North Kingstown; and the paper
itself will be produced at the Independent’s offices at 202 Church St.
in South Kingstown, he said. An initial advertisement in the Jan. 3
Providence Journal called for an editor, reporters, an office manager, a
graphic artist and a photographer.
Linda Levin, an associate professor of journalism at the University of
Rhode Island and secretary of the Rhode Island Press Association, called
the brewing battle for preeminence in the area “one of the most
fascinating newspaper stories we’ve had in the state, only briefly
eclipsed by the sale of the Providence Journal” to A.H. Belo Corporation
of Dallas in 1997.
Wilson has a tall order to fill, Levin said. At the same time, he has
economics and a local reputation working in his favor. In a part of the
state where home sales and construction are booming, “Rick has the
loyalty of this current generation of newspaper readers to get him
through the next few years.”
However, numbers will ultimately decide the future, Levin said.
“My prediction is that the Journal-Register Company, which is a large,
national business, will eventually look at the bottom line for this
chain in southern Rhode Island and if it’s performing to the standard
that they expect it to perform, it’ll remain in their ownership,” she
said.
In the event of lack-luster sales, Levin toyed with a scenario that – as
unlikely as it seems given the current animosities – would bring
Wilson’s personal and professional story full circle.
“They probably will consider selling it,” Levin said. Should that
happen, “Rick would be in the forefront as a buyer.”
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