Features

SF Examiner dropping Sunday edition to expand Friday edition

The Associated Press
Saturday April 06, 2002

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Examiner no longer will publish on Sundays in favor of expanding its Friday edition with more weekend sports and entertainment information. 

Zoran Basich, the Examiner’s executive editor, said the change will allow the paper’s staff more time to craft each weekday issue, adding that the paper has noticed a surge in weekday circulation. 

“There’s some small incidental savings in terms of paper and printing, but this is more about looking at where we are with our ongoing efforts to survive long term,” Basich said Friday. “Deciding to go to five days a week makes more sense to us.” 

The change means the Examiner will publish Monday through Friday mornings. The paper has not been published on Saturdays under its current ownership. 

About 15,000 Examiners are sold from newsracks each weekday, which is up after a stagnant summer, Basich said. The expanded Friday edition is one component of the Examiner’s overall redesign, which is set to debut in the next couple of months. The change will not require layoffs, he said. 

The Examiner is operating largely on a $66 million, three-year subsidy from the Hearst Corp., former owner of the newspaper. 

Hearst purchased the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000 and later merged its Examiner staff with the Chronicle’s. The Fang family, which already published several giveaway papers, became owners of the Examiner and hired its own staff of writers and editors.