David Black has a boat named Esperanza – “hope,” in Spanish. Many would say the name would be better suited for his business strategy, one pinned firmly on the future of newspapers.
He loves details, isn't flashy and likes a good yarn, much like the 158 publications put out by Black Press Ltd., a motley collection of generally small papers mostly in British Columbia and Washington state. He runs them lean – and they make money.
About a year ago, the ever-ambitious Mr. Black (no relation to the one-time media baron now jailed in Florida) was on the expansion hunt. And so was Platinum Equity LLC, a conglomerate out of Los Angeles, a specialist in rejuvenating businesses that have hit hard times and owner of everything from telecommunications to fibreglass and crane rentals.
In March, with Mr. Black on board as an investor and adviser, Platinum Equity bought The San Diego Union-Tribune, a 141-year-old paper where advertising revenue had fallen 40 per cent in the past three years as the southern California city was ravaged by the burst real estate bubble and battered by recession.
Community newspapers are still the best place for retailers to advertise. They get the most response for their dollars. — David Black
It is here David Black sees a future for newspapers. He believes in an old-fashioned recipe, that a local paper has a unique role for advertisers, especially the likes of furniture stores and auto dealerships. There is still value in a full-page ad, even for beaten-down city papers. When the economy comes back, papers will get back on their feet too, the idea goes.
Mr. Black and Platinum don't have dreams of editorial expansion. Mr. Black's papers are mostly of the decidedly no-frill variety, and, in one example, there are no plans to resurrect the Union-Tribune's Washington bureau, which was shuttered last year. “In a perfect world, you have bureaus in several places but that perfect world isn't going to happen, I don't believe, where you have money to burn in editorial,” Mr. Black said in an interview.
The 63-year-old isn't so much a newspaper man as a businessman running newspapers. Making money is the challenge he relishes, and he continues to make it when many others in the industry are failing. Born in Vancouver, educated in engineering at University of British Columbia and business at University of Western Ontario, Mr. Black bought his first newspaper in 1975 when he was 29, the tiny Williams Lake Tribune in the central interior of British Columbia.
David Black reads a copy of the Akron Beacon Journal in his Victoria office.
More than three decades later, from his headquarters in Victoria, Mr. Black watches the industry suffer. Losses pile up at print publications and no one makes money online – or has a good idea where a profit will eventually come from, because everything is given away free and advertising revenue doesn't support it. Big-name papers are failing in the United States and bleeding in Canada.
Now, with bondholders in charge of CanWest Global Communications Corp., a re-ordering of this country's media landscape looms as some analysts predict the media giant will sell its 13 dailies and 26 community newspapers.
Mr. Black could be a key player.
Black Press is projected to be profitable this year – annual revenue of about $500-million and 2.8 million in circulation – and he often further bolsters his position through partnerships.
David's got a great nose for making money and he's fearless doing it. — Robert Prichard, a former chief executive officer of Torstar and Toronto Star publisher
