Read all about it: Neepawa newspapers merge

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This article was published 06/10/2017 (2964 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Then there was one.

The dying breed of towns with two newspapers has taken another hit with the merger of the Neepawa Banner and 121-year-old Neepawa Press.

Owner Ken Waddell made the announcement last week, with the first edition hitting the streets Thursday. The Neepawa Banner and Press will combine popular features of both papers, he said.

Neepawa had been a longtime two-newspaper town since Waddell opened the upstart Banner in 1989.

“We saw an opening in the market for a second paper, and we read the market correctly because it lasted 28 years,” said Waddell, a former Neepawa mayor.

The Banner grew larger than its older competitor and now stands at 8,300 copies per week — the largest newspaper in western Manitoba outside of urban centres — versus 3,200 for the Press.

Waddell didn’t see it as beating the other paper. “I wouldn’t say we so much won, but we more correctly served the market than our neighbour,” he said.

In 2015, Ken and Christine Waddell purchased the rival Press from Vancouver-based Glacier Media. The deal included the newspaper, its building, its equipment and 121-year-old archive.

“It was a good title, and we’ve got a tremendous archive. I can take you down in the basement and show you the pages of the first paper. We’ve got all the archives in hard copy, and have it on microfilm up to 1972,” Waddell said.

Waddell said the only public reaction to last week’s announcement was: what took him so long? Most people had assumed he would do it right after the purchase.

“I gave it the option and let the marketplace decide. So we did for two years,” he said. It wasn’t so much the internet that forced the move, but that advertising by the federal and provincial governments has dried up.

Waddell said he never gave any thought to abandoning print and putting out just a digital newspaper. Few digital-only operations are making it work, he said.

“It’s a myth they’re doing it successfully, I’ll tell you that. There may be the odd one, but very, very few,” said Waddell, who is also president of the Manitoba Community Newspapers Association.

There are a handful of two-newspaper towns remaining in Manitoba, including Selkirk, the Stonewall-Teulon area and Morden-Winkler area, but it is a relatively recent status for those communities.

“If you keep it local and you keep it privately owned, you have half a chance of doing well in this business,” Waddell said.

“We’re making decent money. We’re not rich, but we’re enjoying ourselves, paying our staff, paying the mortgage.”

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca