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David Cohen
David Cohen now SVCN principal owner
By Dale Bryant
David Cohen, publisher/CEO of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, has become principal owner of the company which publishes six community newspapers in Santa Clara Valley. The announcement was made by Cohen and longtime business partner Dan Pulcrano.
Earlier this year, SVCN, which was publishing under the umbrella of Metro Newspapers, began operating as an independent company.
Effective today, Pulcrano, who had been chief executive officer of Metro Newspapers and executive editor of Metro's four alternative weeklies, becomes principal owner, CEO and publisher of Metro Newspapers. Cohen, who had been chief executive officer of SVCN Inc. and its six community newspapers, becomes principal owner and publisher/CEO of SVCN, LLC.
The reorganization, funded with financing from an investment banking firm specializing in media transactions, will result in two financially stronger companies, Pulcrano and Cohen say.
Press Release: Metro Publishing Group completes spinoff, separates ownership of community papers.
With the formal separation of the two companies, a new chapter has been written in the odyssey of two friends who became business partners 17 years ago when they decided to start Metro as an alternative newspaper in the valley.
At 23, Pulcrano founded the Los Gatos Weekly in 1982 with the support of a group of local investors. The paper competed with the century-old Los Gatos Times-Observer owned by Meredith Corp. of Des Moines, Iowa.
Pulcrano later sold the paper, and invited Cohen to work with him to create an alternative newspaper in the valley. In 1985, they founded Metro with an initial circulation of 40,000.
When the two had an opportunity in 1990 to purchase the Los Gatos Weekly and the Times-Observer, they took the leap into community journalism. They combined the two papers into the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.
A year later, the partners also purchased the Saratoga News and the Willow Glen Resident, a monthly which now publishes weekly.
Cohen says that in the beginning, community newspapers were "sort of a sideline."
In 1993, Metro Newspapers began publishing a weekly newspaper in Cupertino, and acquired its competitor, the Cupertino Courier. The company also founded The Sun in Sunnyvale in 1994 and the Campbell Reporter in 1999.
According to Pulcrano, "Metro Newspapers was one of the first companies to successfully embrace both community papers and alternative weeklies, and the strategy resulted in rapid growth. Now that both groups have achieved critical mass, each has enough revenues to operate on its own.
"We're proud that we were able to restore the tradition of local journalism in the Santa Clara Valley," Pulcrano says. "During the 1970s, the valley's local newspapers were purchased by out-of-town businesses. Metro was able to rebuild the publications community by community."
With the continuing success of the community newspapers, Cohen and Pulcrano began talking several years ago about separating their alternative papers and community papers into two companies with the idea that both alternative and community readers would be better served by separate companies, each with a targeted focus.
For more than two years, they have focused on separating functions into two divisions. Last year, Cohen was named CEO of SVCN.
Now, with separate ownership, says Cohen, "SVCN will be a community newspaper-dedicated company, and we will be able to focus all our energy on the kinds of intense local coverage that makes our papers strong in the valley's established family neighborhoods. And the Metro group will be able to focus on its mission of providing cutting edge, alternative-type content designed for broader markets."
In addition to its six community newspapers, SVCN also publishes City Times, a legal newspaper. The combined circulation of SVCN's community newspapers is 100,000 and there are some 50 employees. The company anticipates revenues in 2002 of $8 million.
Besides its flagship newspaper, Metro Newspapers also publishes Metro Santa Cruz, the Bohemian in Sonoma County, and Urbanview in Oakland. The company expects 2002 revenues of $10 million.
Metro will continue to operate from its offices at 550 S. First St. in San Jose. SVCN expects to move to its corporate offices at 1095 The Alameda, San Jose, when construction is completed in late January. Approximately 40 employees will work out of The Alameda office.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
