The Seattle Times Company is a privately owned news and information company controlled by the Blethen family. Its flagship newspaper, The Seattle Times, is the largest daily newspaper in Washington state.
The Seattle Times began as the Seattle Press-Times, a four-page newspaper founded in 1891 with a daily circulation of 3,500, which Maine teacher and attorney Alden J. Blethen bought in 1896. Renamed the Seattle Daily Times, it doubled its circulation within half a year, and by 1915 circulation reached 70,000. As of March 2013, weekday circulation stood at 229,764.
The company publishes papers in Walla Walla, Yakima and Issaquah, Washington. Under the terms of a joint operating agreement, The Seattle Times also managed advertising, production, circulation, and marketing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, until that newspaper ceased print publication on March 17, 2009.
In June 2009, the Seattle Times Company sold the Portland Press Herald and the rest of the Blethen Maine newspapers to MaineToday Media, a company led by Bangor, Maine native Richard L. Connor. The sale ended a 15-month effort by the debt-laden Seattle Times Company to sell its media holdings in Maine. The sale included the Kennebec Journal in Augusta and the Waterville Morning Sentinel, the MaineToday websites and niche print publications. Together they employed about 500 people.
The Seattle Times Company is family owned and operated and has been that way since it was founded in 1896 by Alden J. Blethen. The McClatchy Company is a major investor in the company, owning 49.5% of the voting stock and 70.6% of the nonvoting stock.
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