Real story behind the demise of the Las Vegas Sun

[LanceyHoward]

Who said the Las Vegas Sun has had a demise? I went to their website and it still exists. The JOA is alive. The Sun is thriving. WTF?

A couple years ago members of the Greenspan family, which controls the paper, were suing each other. My memory was that Brian Greenspan wanted to keep the Sun while other family members wanted to close it because the Sun was losing money. The family did have some other Las Vegas related media properties that made money and were tired of subsidizing the Sun. Eventually the lawsuit was settled in 2014 and the family properties divided. The Las Vegas media properties were given to Brian. But given industry revenue trends I wonder if the newspaper is even more of a cash drain.

The other problem is that JOA's only buy time. They are almost always a one time solution. In Las Vegas a JOA was signed in 1989. Both papers made more money because they could share a plant. But 27 years later the Sun is down to a website and an insert. The next time the JOA needs to be renewed the LVRJ owner, Adelman, just tells the Sun that he will not renew the JOA. So the Sun will not be able to insert into the LVRJ and have to shut down the print paper. That is the reason JOA's always lead to the death on a paper. The weaker paper always gets strangled in the end,

 

[ChrisLong]

I got to Vegas frequently at the time at the time Adelson was taking over. The Sun insert was pure garbage. Some of it was just a rehash of what was in the RJ, i.e. calendar items and entertainment reviews.
The one "memorable" column was on UNLV basketball. It was November and the start of the season was near.
The columnist wrote more than 30 inches on the schedule. He predicted what the final record would be and listed every game with his predicted final score and a comment.
Print should be dead if crap like that is to be included.