American City Business Journals
American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States (each market's edition named for that market, such as Austin Business Journal, Hartford Business Journal, Wichita Business Journal, etc.), and also publishes Hemmings Motor News and Inside Lacrosse. The company is owned by Advance Publications. The company receives revenue from display advertising and classified advertising in its weekly newspaper and online advertising on its website and from a subscription business model.
Company type
The bizjournals.com website, using the overarching online title The Business Journal, contains local business news from various cities in the United States, along with an archive that contains more than 5 million business news articles published since 1996. As of August 2021, it receives over 3.6 million readers each week.[3]
History[edit]
The company was founded in 1982 by Mike Russell with the launch of the Kansas City Business Journal.[1]
In 1985, the company became a public company via an initial public offering and was traded as an over the counter stock.[1]
In 1986, the company acquired the full complement of publications from Business Journal Publications, including the St. Louis Business Journal and several other business journals and legal publications.[1]
In 1986, Mike Russel acquired ten city business newspapers, in six states and the national capital, from the Scripps-Howard Business Journals division of Scripps-Howard Newspapers: Phoenix (Arizona); Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco (California); Atlanta (Georgia); Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston (Texas); Seattle (Washington); as well as Washington, D.C. and a South Florida edition combining Miami/Fort Lauderdale.
Ray Shaw joined the company in 1989 and served as the company's chairman and chief executive officer for 20 years until his death in 2009.[2] Under Shaw's leadership, the company moved its headquarters from Kansas City, Missouri to Charlotte, North Carolina and greatly increased the number of its publications.[2]
In 1995, the company was acquired by Advance Publications for US$258.8 million (equivalent to $472.8 million in 2023).[4]
In 2001, the company partnered with Microsoft to provide content for bcentral.com.[5]
In 2007, the company acquired Inside Lacrosse.[6]
In 2012, sister company Condé Nast redirected Portfolio.com to the startups page of ACBJ.[7]
In 2020, the company launched a book publishing partnership.[8][9][10]
The publication publishes the following annual awards for each city:
List of publications [edit]
City business publications[edit]
As of 2023, American City Business Journals (ACBJ) publishes print copies of 44 different newspapers, addressing business news in 44 different cities, generally under the names City or Region name + Business + Journal (33 cities) or First (5) or Times (2) or Chronicle (1) or Courier (1) or News (1) or Review (1).:
