Industry experts doubtful on merger of the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot

Imagine: An ambitious buyer scoops up both The Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press in Newport News and merges them into one regional paper.
Maybe The Virginian-Press? Or The Daily-Pilot?
Local boosters of regionalism relish the thought.
"Interesting," said E. Dana Dickens, president and chief executive officer of the Hampton Roads Partnership, musing over the specter of one regional paper.
Don't hold your breath, media researchers say.
"Hell, anything is possible these days, but I would say it's unlikely," said John Morton, a longtime newspaper analyst in Silver Spring, Md.
The scenario, though, has nosed into the realm of the possible, more so than at any time in the recent past.
Landmark Communications Inc., a Norfolk media company that owns The Pilot, announced Thursday that it was considering dismantling its enterprise. Landmark has hired two investment houses, JPMorgan and Lehman Brothers, to analyze options including "the possible sale of the company's businesses."
Meanwhile, across the water, real estate magnate Sam Zell last month took control of Tribune Co., the Chicago-based media company that owns the Daily Press. Zell warned that huge shifts might be ahead.
He has said he has no immediate plans to sell assets, but New York analyst Edward Atorino thinks the Daily Press could come into play.
"The Tribune has a lot of debt and Sam Zell may look to prune the corporate tree to raise some cash, and that might be on the list," Atorino said.
So what if Zell sells to a Hampton Roads-oriented buyer who then picks up The Pilot and combines them into one paper?
"The few times there have been attempts to create regional newspapers, they haven't worked out well," said Morton, president of Morton Research Inc.
"There has proven to be danger when you take the identity of two different papers with historically different audience bases and try to make them into one," he said. "It's not something that would be in the top of most potential acquirers' minds."
Kip Cassino, vice president of research at Borrell Associates, a media research firm in Williamsburg, also considered the prospect improbable, but added: "It wouldn't be a bad idea."
"From a business standpoint, it's a dream scenario," Cassino said. "What happens is, you centralize printing and all the call centers and all of the administrative stuff, and then you're able to run these papers at a much lower cost."
Atorino, managing director of The Benchmark Co. LLC, said a more likely scenario is a "duopoly," in which one buyer acquires both papers and maintains them. "Unless one paper is not well known in the area, why destroy the brand?"
Because it would give readers a better sense of the goings-on across Hampton Roads, said Dickens, whose organization is promoting an "America's First Region" license plate as part of its regionalism push.
"Having one newspaper with all of the regional news being viewed by people in both markets, I think, would contribute a great deal to bringing the region closer together," he said.
Arthur L. Collins, executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, agreed.
"Because there are different papers on both sides of Hampton Roads, there is a sense that they're different communities," he said. "You only hear about what's going on on your side of the river. It reinforces the separation."
The Virginian-Pilot's seven-day average circulation for the six-month period ending last September was 186,489. The Daily Press' figure was 86,358.
Across the region, Dickens said he's found a hunger for news that extends beyond city lines. Executives at the two local dailies view it differently.
"I see our strength and our business to be local and connected to the Peninsula and to the adjacent communities that are relevant to it, not South Hampton Roads," said Digby Solomon, the publisher of the Daily Press. "Nobody lives in Hampton Roads. We all know it. You live in Norfolk. You live in Virginia Beach. You live in Newport News."
Bruce Bradley, publisher of The Pilot, said the newspaper does not offer home delivery on the Peninsula because "it just doesn't make sense economically."
In terms of staff, The Pilot has no bureau or full-time reporter on the Peninsula, editor Denis Finley said, though it covers news such as the opening of the Ferguson Center for the Arts at Christopher Newport University or the decision to close Fort Monroe in Hampton.
"We want to put our resources where we have the most readers, and that's in Hampton Roads," Finley said.
Both publishers offered virtually identical conclusions about the value of regionalism in their business.
"It makes sense in how you approach government and legislation, but from the point of view of publishing a newspaper, I think that's an outdated business model," Solomon said.
According to Bradley, "Regionalism is wonderful, but we're not going to do something that's not in our interest."
Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com