Where the Weekly Began

By Henry Dubroff
November 6, 2008

By most accounts, the first modern weekly business journal was Cervi’s Rocky Mountain Journal, a publication launched in Denver in 1948.

Eugene Cervi was a true journalistic maverick, a cranky soul who had worked for both The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News before striking out on his own.

I had a chance to look over the early volumes of Cervi’s Rocky Mountain Journal, having worked at Cervi’s successor, The Denver Business Journal, in the mid-1990s. Cervi was a Colorado populist whose favorite targets were the phone company, Mountain Bell, and the utility company, Public Service Co. of Colorado.

He wrote a lot about retail and agriculture, his publication contained public records and legal notices and he found an advertising niche that combined retail and financial services.

As Cervi labored in Denver, publications that printed public records, legal notices and lawsuits popped up in a number of cities.

Some began to add building permits, construction contracts and stories about commercial real estate to coverage. Some were free, others had paid circulation. Some limited themselves to public records and brief news items while others pursued more in-depth stories reported by professionals.

Another of the oldest business journals is Long Island Business News, which first appeared in 1953. It was published twice weekly and even daily before settling in on a weekly format.

Crain’s Chicago Business plowed new turf in the coverage of the advertising industry and financial services as well as commercial real estate. Crain Communications has built on that success to spawn offspring in Detroit, Cleveland and New York.

But it was two guys from Kansas City who transformed the business journal into the useful business tool found today in most metropolitan areas.

After launching the Kansas City Business Journal in 1982, Mike Russell and “Doc” Worley created a company called American City Business Journals.

Throughout the 1980s American City rolled up or launched a number of weekly newspapers. By 1986, the company owned business journals in 36 cities, including the acquisition of a dozen business journals from Scripps Howard newspapers. Worley and Russell faced the Herculean task of bringing editorial consistency to each market and developing a single approach to circulation sales and advertising.

The company was very entrepreneurial and it pioneered ideas like the “Top 25” list and the “Top 25 Book of Lists,” which to this day are huge franchises for any business journal worth its salt.

But publicly-traded American City was in the middle of a major overreach. Heavily laden with debt, the company fell into deep financial trouble in the junk bond collapse of the late 1980s. Its stock went into a steep decline.

Before the decade was over, a controlling interest in the company had been purchased by an investor group led by current Chairman Ray Shaw. The group also included Oklahoma newspaper owner and entertainment entrepreneur Edward L. Gaylord.

Under Shaw, the American City Business Journals group underwent major improvements in quality of staff and news content. The journals began to develop their current look and approach to both news and business.

The revamped business journals opted for a subscription-based model and expanded event offerings, including popular “40 Under 40” celebrations honoring up-and-coming leaders. The weeklies also expanded coverage of small and minority-owned businesses.

American City moved to Charlotte, N.C. and added a number of new publications to its track, including NASCAR-related titles.

In the mid-1990s, the American City Business Journals group was purchased by Advance Publications, owned by the Newhouse family of New York.

More acquisitions followed and American City launched the successful Sports Business Journal, a weekly business journal aimed at a national market for news about the business of sports.

Today, American City is by far the largest business journal group in the country, followed by Crain Communications. But there also is Larry Bridges, an investor from the Kansas City area who owns business journals in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and the San Fernando Valley. Dolan Media Co. of Minneapolis owns a number of business journals and legal publications and Brown Publishing of Cincinnati has been acquiring business journals in smaller markets in recent years.

It’s fair to say that business journals have come a long way from the days when Cervi’s broadsides against the big utilities were the talk of Denver’s 17th Street financial district.

But business readers across the country still appreciate a lively, informative local publication that uncovers government waste or brings to light unscrupulous promoters or investment scams.

Sources: American City Business Journals Securities and Exchange Commission Filings, Denver Business Journal’s 50th Anniversary Edition and published reports.

Please enter your friend's e-mail address

Please enter your e-mail address

If you would like to include a message, please add it here:

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism