Weekly Planet's owner to buy chain

By JEFF HARRINGTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 8, 2000

TAMPA -- Ben Eason, owner of the Weekly Planet alternative weeklies in Tampa and Sarasota, will soon have a much larger chain of newspapers under his control.

Eason and his two sisters, Jennifer and Taylor, have struck a deal to buy the Atlanta-based Creative Loafing publishing chain from their parents, Deborah and Elton Eason, and co-publisher Scott Walsey.

The merged company would rank as the third-largest chain of free-distribution alternative weeklies, claiming a combined circulation near 500,000. The Weekly Planet says it has a Tampa Bay area circulation of about 76,000.

Terms were not disclosed, but the company said funding came in part from unnamed investors and a loan.

Ben Eason on Friday described the deal as the first major case of family succession in the alternative weekly industry. "My dad is 70 and my mom is 66," he said. "They are the oldest publishers in the alternative industry. Most of the publishers are baby boomers."

Under the deal, the two elder Easons and Walsey agreed to sell some of their shares to a group formed by the three Eason siblings: Ben, 35; Jennifer, 36; and Taylor, 31. The siblings, who live in Tampa, expect to complete the sale by the end of August.

Walsey will become publisher of the company's five newspapers in Atlanta: Creative Loafing, Gwinnett Loaf, Topside Loaf, The Scene and Motorsport America, a monthly. The chain also owns various Internet sites and weeklies in Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C., Savannah, Ga., and Greenville, S.C.

The company also is in the process of becoming a part owner of Birmingham Weekly, an alternative publication in Alabama. At the same time, it is closing two monthly publications it purchased in the last year: JAM Magazine in Orlando and Creative Loafing-Birmingham.

The combined company will have 300 employees: 50 in Tampa and Sarasota and 250 in Creative Loafing operations.

Ben Eason will serve as president and oversee the new company from Tampa, though the company does not expect any significant shift of employees of operations from Atlanta.

It is unclear what role remains for Deborah Eason, currently co-publisher and editor of the Atlanta-based alternative weekly. Deborah and Elton Eason founded Creative Loafing in 1972 as an arts and culture publication and grew its circulation to 120,000.

John Sugg, senior editor of the Weekly Planet in Tampa, said he expects the bigger chain to share resources and develop larger, issue-driven stories.

And he hopes it gives them more clout. "George Bush might not want to stop by and talk with the Weekly Planet," he said.

"He might want to stop by and talk with a group of editors of a chain that represents half-a-million readers."

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