Asheville/Greenville, S.C.?

Hearing a nasty rumor from some friends that Gannett has decided to combine the editorial staffs at its papers in Asheville and Greenville, S.C., and that ALL staffers have to reapply for their jobs ... can anyone confirm?

 

I don't know for sure, but Josh Awtry heads up both papers. He was my executive editor in Fort Collins for two years and completely turned our paper around. I'm sure, if it is true, we'll hear soon. Company-wide meetings were this week at HQ.

 

Wow. Not quite next door to each other and both readerships have very different tastes, especially in sports

 

Asheville's a weird section. The last time UNC Asheville was in the Big South men's hoops title game, they wrote a phone story. Myrtle Beach is only a five-hour drive, but they wouldn't even travel to cover their home DI team in a conference tournament championship game.

 

Maybe the sports editor had to leave early for his kids' travel ball practice — or, better yet, practice for the high school football team he coaches. /double crossthread

 

Or he had to get over to Chuck E. Cheese because he didn't have a date lined up for the weekend yet.

Never mind, bad taste.

 

Were they tied up with the SoCon Tournament? Still strange, as the Big South finals are on a Sunday, when a preps writer could be sent. The days and times in which we live.

 

I agree that Asheville and Greenville do not make a lot of sense as a combined desk. Different states. etc. But I would think combining, as an example, Spartanburg and Greenville would make a lot of economic sense. Papers sell at relatively low cash flow multiplies. A consolidator could combine sell operations. then the property of one paper could be sold to quickly recoup some of the initial investment. I would bet that the population of advertisers is largely the same in adjacent towns such as Greenville and Spartanburg.

I am curious about is whether the spun off Gannett publishing company will be interested in investing in combining print properties or just electronic. They just paid 1.8B to buy 100% for Cars.com. Will they follow up with additional print investments or continue to sell off marginal properties?

 

One of the weirdest TV markets in the country. I mention this as you talk about combining resources at newspapers there.

Asheville-Spartanburg-Greenville is a combined TV market - 37th largest in the country, I believe - the size of San Antonio and larger than Buffalo, New Orleans, Jacksonville and Birmingham. However, it pays about half for on-air positions as the other towns mentioned.

I mention this, not as a hijack, but that the TV world does this. Not sure how all as A-S-G each has its own station.

 

That's weird to me. Asheville is at least an hour away from both Spartanburg/Greenville. Not only is the distance there, Spartanburg is your average SC town while Asheville is a hippie mecca. Greenville is cool, reminds me some of Raleigh.

 

It is indeed very strange. And while Asheville pretty much keeps to itself and covers North Carolina news, the Greenville and Spartanburg stations cover much of the same ground in South Carolina and hardly get over the border into North Carolina. A really unusual setup and a large market area-wise.

 

I grew up around there (small, small town down the road from Greenville). As kids, in the wintertime we always watched the Asheville station in the mornings, because if we were going to get snow, they'd be getting it first.