MARYVILLE, Tenn. — An agreement has been reached to sell The Daily Times, a Maryville-based newspaper owned by the parent company of the Peninsula Daily News, to Jones Media Inc.
Jones Media is based in Greeneville, Tenn., where it publishes its flagship newspaper, The Greeneville Sun. It owns 12 other newspapers.
The announcement of the impending sale was made Thursday to the respective staffs of the Times
and the Jones publications by Peter Horvitz, Horvitz Newspapers LLC president and chief executive, and Jones Media President and CEO Gregg Jones.
Terms of the sale were not announced, and the companies said they hope to conclude the deal in the near future.
“This decision will have no impact on the operation of the Peninsula Daily News,” said John Brewer, the PDN‘s editor and publisher who is also executive vice president of Northwest Media LP, a division of Horvitz Newspapers.
“The PDN has always been a stand-alone publication, completely locally operated.”
The newspaper has an average daily circulation of almost 18,000 and is the largest source of local news and advertising in Jefferson and Clallam counties.
The PDN also publishes Sequim This Week, a free weekly community news magazine distributed by mail to 10,637 households in the 98362 ZIP code, with almost 1,000 more copies distributed weekly through stores and businesses in Sequim, Carlsborg and downtown Port Angeles.
It also operates www.peninsuladailynews.com, the largest and most heavily used news and advertising website on the North Olympic Peninsula.
The PDN‘s website has averaged 662,113 page views monthly so far this year, up from 539,632 monthly in 2009 and 411,914 monthly in 2008.
The PDN recently moved to improved and lighter, locally made newsprint.
All copies are now printed on newsprint from the Nippon Paper Industries USA Ltd. paper mill in Port Angeles.
The 40-gram Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper is a result of the mill’s expertise in making lightweight paper with less energy and with recycled fiber, according to Brewer.
The paper mill recently resumed newsprint production after a 25-year hiatus.
