Enterprise to leave Shoreline, LFP

Published 7:54 pm Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The poor economy and insufficient advertising support will mean some major changes for the Enterprise Newspapers.

The Shoreline/Lake Forest Park Enterprise will print its last edition on Oct. 28, and the editions serving Lynnwood, Mill Creek, Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace will be combined into a single, larger paper on Nov. 4, publisher Allen Funk announced Tuesday, Sept. 28.

“In this economy we had to make the difficult decision to reallocate resources,” Funk said. “We decided we couldn’t continue to go into Shoreline and Lake Forest Park.

“I’m disappointed to be leaving Shoreline and Lake Forest Park,” he added. “These are important communities, but ultimately it’s a business decision.”

The Herald started the Shoreline weekly in April 1995 and bought the South County Enterprise publications 18 months later. All the operations were combined and based in Lynnwood. They were printed on Herald presses in Everett.

Funk said he believes that weekly newspapers are important and that he hopes to help someone step in and produce a weekly paper to fill the gap. He said the Enterprise “couldn’t afford to continue to serve all the communities, and Shoreline was the one that didn’t fit well.”

Located in King County, Shoreline has a different county government, different school district and different shopping patterns, and was the logical choice for elimination to reduce production and distribution costs, Funk said.

The publication was delivered to about 20,000 people.

Funk said there are no plans at this point to reduce the number of employees at the Enterprise. “We already run a fairly slim operation,” he said.

Funk said he plans to refocus Enterprise resources to produce one expanded edition for the four south county communities. The paper, typically from 12 to 16 pages, will be expanded by two to six pages based on advertising, Funk said.

In edition to the expansion, he hopes to distribute the paper to an additional 9,000 to 10,000 households in the coming months, shifting its readership from about 75 percent of the population to much closer to 100 percent.

The publication will continue to be distributed by both adults, who are paid by the newspaper, and youth carriers, who collect $2 a month from customers.

Funk said producing a bigger paper that goes to more people should make it more attractive to both readers and advertisers. He added that the new weekly should be delivered on Wednesday. The previous editions were delivered on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Mike Benbow writes for the Herald of Everett.