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''The Times'' is a daily newspaper owned by
Advance Publications Advance Publications, Inc., doing business as Advance, is an American media company owned by the descendants of S.I. Newhouse Sr., Donald Newhouse and S.I. Newhouse Jr. It owns a large number of subsidiary companies, including Condé Nast, an ...
that serves Trenton and the Mercer County,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
area, with a strong focus on the
government of New Jersey The government of the State of New Jersey is separated into three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The powers of the State of New Jersey are vested by the Constitution of New Jersey, enacted in 1947, in a bicameral st ...
. The paper had a daily circulation of 77,405, with Sunday circulation of 88,336. It competes with the ''
Trentonian ''The Trentonian'' is a daily newspaper serving Trenton, New Jersey, USA, and the surrounding Mercer County community. The paper in 2020 has a daily circulation of under 8,000 and a Sunday circulation under 7,000. As of August 2020, it was ranke ...
'', making it the smallest market in the United States with two competing daily newspapers. As of August 2020, it was ranked fifth in total circulation among newspapers in New Jersey.


History

''The Trenton Times'' was founded in 1882. The paper was owned by the Kerney family from the turn of the 20th century, and was sold to
The Washington Post Company Graham Holdings Company (formerly The Washington Post Company) is a diversified American conglomerate holding company. Headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, and incorporated in Delaware, it was formerly the owner of ''The Washington Post ...
in 1974 for $16 million. Washington Post Company management had committed to overcoming its crosstown rival, the ''
Trentonian ''The Trentonian'' is a daily newspaper serving Trenton, New Jersey, USA, and the surrounding Mercer County community. The paper in 2020 has a daily circulation of under 8,000 and a Sunday circulation under 7,000. As of August 2020, it was ranke ...
'', which had been founded in 1945 (by personnel on strike against ''The Times'') and had been taking circulation away from ''The Times'' since its inception. The new management began a morning edition and started circulating a Saturday edition, led by a number of editors, publishers and circulation experts imported from ''The Post''. Despite this commitment, ''The Times'' lost in excess of 11,000 daily readers in the 1970s, while the ''Trentonian'' gained 13,000. By 1982, the ''Trentonian'' had pulled ahead of ''The Times'' in daily circulation, and held a 67,000 to 62,000 edge in daily papers as of 1987. Area newspaper readers never adopted the Post's approach of turning ''The Times'' into a paper with a serious national and international focus, preferring the tabloid ''Trentonian'' and its local focus on "cheerful photographs of local residents". The difficulties faced by ''The Times'' were so challenging that
Katharine Graham Katharine Meyer Graham (June 16, 1917 – July 17, 2001) was an American newspaper publisher. She led her family's newspaper, ''The Washington Post'', from 1963 to 1991. Graham presided over the paper as it reported on the Watergate scandal, whi ...
, chairman of ''The Post'', called her experiences with ''The Times'' as her "Vietnam."White, Victoria
"CHANGING TIMES IN TRENTON"
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', February 15, 1987. Accessed August 27, 2008.
Allbritton Communications Company The Allbritton Communications Company was an American media company. Based in Arlington, Virginia, Allbritton was the leading subsidiary of Perpetual Corporation, a private holding company owned by the family of company founder and former Riggs ...
bought the paper from The Washington Post Company on October 30, 1981, paying $10 to $12 million for the paper.McFadden, Robert D
"WASHINGTON POST SELLS TRENTON TIMES TO ALLBRITTON COMPANY"
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', October 31, 1981. Accessed August 27, 2008.
Allbritton reduced news staff at ''The Times'' from 80 employees to 56 shortly after its takeover, and made further cuts down to 52. In December 1981, ''The Times'' announced that it was dropping its evening edition and would become morning-only as of December 21, 1981. Frustrations with what was perceived as business office interference with news reporting led to defections by a quarter of the news staff in early 1982. The home city was dropped from the title in 1985 as part of an effort to reach out to a broader suburban audience, with separate editions published for (and focusing on) the Trenton,
Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...
and Burlington County areas. In December 1986, the paper was sold by Albritton for $50 million to
Advance Publications Advance Publications, Inc., doing business as Advance, is an American media company owned by the descendants of S.I. Newhouse Sr., Donald Newhouse and S.I. Newhouse Jr. It owns a large number of subsidiary companies, including Condé Nast, an ...
, the privately held company owned by the Newhouse family. In 1987, the revitalized Trenton Times surpassed the tabloid Trentonian in both daily and Sunday paid circulation. The Trentonian responded by adding bikini-clad women on Page 6 but despite this tactic, the Times continued to surpass the Trentonian in paid circulation into the 21st century. In 2011, the historic offices on Perry Street in Trenton, by this time in a state of advanced decay, with very serious roof leaks that at one point completely soaked the newspaper library and its years of paper clippings, were sold to a new owner who proposed to convert the building and its parking lot into a fabricated concrete distribution facility. In 2015, work began at the Perry Street building. In February 2017, it became the home of the
International Academy of Trenton The International Academy of Trenton (IAT) was a SABIS charter school in the city of Trenton, New Jersey. It was the only school in the now defunct International Academy of Trenton School District, which was a separate governing body from Trenton ...
. The building was taken over by the Trenton Public School District for a Ninth Grade Academy after the charter school failed to have its charter renewed by the state.Trenton’s 9th Grade Academy to move into closing $17M charter school
/ref> Printing of the paper was outsourced to the ''
Staten Island Advance The ''Staten Island Advance'' is a daily newspaper published in the borough of Staten Island in New York City. The only daily newspaper published in the borough, and the only major daily paper focused on a borough, it covers news of local and ...
'', another Newhouse newspaper. Strict, early evening newsroom deadlines were imposed so that the printing schedule would fit that of the ''Advance''. When the building was sold, the remaining Times crew, numbering around 30, moved into leased offices at River View Plaza beside Waterfront Park, the Mercer County ballpark. Longtime Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Brian Malone retired; and his editorial replacement, Matt Dowling, and new Publisher Sheila Gallagher-Montone struggled to keep the brand alive. Restructuring efforts initially led to a repopulation of the newsroom, as the headcount expanded and the editorial operations reacquired some of their former liveliness. Soon the paper was noted for its singular resilience amid the general decline of the Newhouse newspaper publications. Gallagher-Montone even went so far as to call it "the Times Miracle" in a year-end staff meeting. Within a year or two, however, the tone had changed considerably, and Gallagher-Montone announced in another staff meeting that the paper was "making budget" (meaning meeting revenue targets) but stopped short of saying that it was profitable. Gallagher-Montone retired in 2015, and former vice president of sales Joan Mason took her place as publisher. The series of layoffs continued, with the most recent occurring in the late spring of 2016. Several former reporters later became successful novelists, including John Katzenbach, Christina Hoag and Lenore Look.


References


External links


''The Times'' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Times, The (Trenton) Advance Publications Newspapers published in New Jersey Trenton, New Jersey Publications established in 1882