Posted by Bud on November 12, 2010 at 09:44:25:
The parent company to the Chicago Sun-Times and numerous other publications, Sun-Times Media Holdings, looks to be ending publication of eleven of its free, weekly, suburban Sun newspapers. With printing and delivery costs on the rise and advertiser revenue on the decline, the free publications could seemingly no longer be supported.
According to a on the Crain's Chicago Business website, Sun-Times Media CEO Jeremy Halbreich said that he hopes only five jobs would be lost and that the rest of the staffers from the weekly Sun papers would be absorbed elsewhere within the company.
The newspapers that will be shut down are:
Batavia Sun
Bolingbrook Sun
Downers Grove Sun
Fox Valley Villages Sun
Geneva Sun
Glen Ellyn Sun
Homer Glen/Lockport/Lemont Sun
Lincoln-Way Sun
Lisle Sun
Plainfield Sun
Wheaton Sun
Their other suburban "Sun" papers, the Lake County News-Sun and the Naperville Sun are not affected by these new changes. Those are daily newspapers that are not free. Only the free suburban "Sun" papers are being shut down.
There is no decision on the fate of the websites for these local newspapers.
Even after these eleven closings, Sun-Times Media Holdings still publishes forty-nine other periodicals. That number includes the Chicago Sun-Times and seven other daily newspapers, numerous Pioneer Press suburban papers and other weeklies, plus the monthly Elite Magazine.