Observer & Eccentric to close 5 Metro Detroit papers

Publications end May 31; multicommunity edition starts June 7

Christina Rogers / The Detroit News

The Observer & Eccentric Newspapers will stop the press on five semi-weeklies on May 31, ending their circulation in Birmingham, Troy, West Bloomfield, Rochester and Southfield and ceasing publication on their Web sites.

The newspaper chain, owned by Gannett Co. Inc., will consolidate the Southfield edition and its Mirror Newspaper into one multicommunity newspaper, called the South Oakland Eccentric, which will begin publication June 7.

The changes were announced Monday, along with layoffs of about 44 people in advertising, circulation, editorial and production. Gannett will continue to publish Observer newspapers in western Wayne County, Farmington and Farmington Hills, and maintain its Hometown Weekly Newspapers in Northville, Novi, Milford and South Lyon.

The combined Thursday circulation of its seven Observer editions and Hometown Weeklies is about 77,000, said Susan Rosiek, executive editor for the Observer & Eccentric, Mirror, and Hometown Newspapers.

"We're kind of going back to our roots," Rosiek said, referring to a time when the Observer and Eccentric were separate chains. They merged in March 1974.

The closures come less than a month after Advance Publications Inc. said it will shut down the Ann Arbor News in July and replace it with AnnArbor.com, an online content daily and semi-weekly print publication.

The newspaper industry has been battling plummeting ad revenue and more readers have been shifting to online content.

"We're resizing and retooling our company just like other newspapers in Michigan and newspapers across the country," Rosiek said.

The new South Oakland Eccentric, which will replace the Southfield edition and the Observer & Eccentric's Mirror Newspaper, will circulate on Sunday in Royal Oak, Berkley, Clawson, Huntington Woods, Southfield and Pleasant Ridge.

The Birmingham Eccentric, which was founded and named after a local men's club, began rolling off the press in 1878, selling for two cents a copy. In the late 1960s, the Eccentric added Troy, West Bloomfield, and then in the 1970s added Southfield and Rochester editions. Those editions have a combined circulation of about 50,000, Rosiek said.

Gannett also owns The Detroit Free Press and is the controlling partner of the Detroit Media Partnership, which manages business functions for the Free Press and The Detroit News. To stem losses at both papers, The News and Free Press last month radically changed the way they deliver news in print and online. The changes involved making the paper smaller and cutting home delivery by several days.

Last year, Gannett moved the Observer & Eccentric offices to the partnership's Detroit building to further cut costs.

Referring to the Eccentric closures, Ed Atorino, a media industry analyst with The Benchmark Co. in New York, said Gannett is trying everything it can to start eliminating costs.