San Francisco Chronicle
The San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young.[1] The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. It is the only major daily paper covering the city and county of San Francisco.
Not to be confused with San Francisco Chronicle Magazine.Type
Bill Nagel
January 16, 1865
901 Mission Street
San Francisco, California
94103
246,592 Sunday circulation
226,860 avg. Mon-Fri circulation
Source: Alliance for Audited Media, 6 mos. ended September 30, 2022
sfchronicle.com
sfgate.com (until 2017)
The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and had the largest newspaper circulation on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like other newspapers, it experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century and was ranked 18th nationally by circulation in the first quarter of 2021.[2]
In 1994, the newspaper launched the SFGATE website, with a soft launch in March and official launch November 3, 1994, including both content from the newspaper and other sources. "The Gate", as it was known at launch, was the first large market newspaper website in the world, co-founded by Allen Weiner and John Coate. It went on to staff up with its own columnists and reporters, and even won a Pulitzer Prize for Mark Fiore's political cartoons.[3]
In 2013, the newspaper launched its own namesake website, SFChronicle.com, and began the separation of SFGATE and the Chronicle brands, which today are two separately run entities.
Web[edit]
The newspaper's websites are at SFGate.com (free) and SFChronicle.com (premium). Originally The Gate, SFGATE was one of the earliest major market newspaper websites to be launched, on November 3, 1994, at the time of The Newspaper Guild strike; the union published its own news website, San Francisco Free Press, whose staff joined SFGATE when the strike ended.[13] SFChronicle.com launched in 2013[14] and since 2019 has been run separately from SFGATE, whose staff are independent of the print newspaper.[15] As of 2020 across all platforms the Chronicle has 34 million unique visitors each month, with SFGATE receiving 135.9 million pageviews and 25.1 million unique visitors per month and SFChronicle.com 31.3 million pageviews and 31.3 million unique visitors per month globally.[16]
Challenges[edit]
Circulation has fallen sharply since the dot-com boom peaked from around 1997 to 2001. The Chronicle's daily readership dropped by 16.6% between 2004 and 2005 to 400,906;[19] The Chronicle fired one quarter of its newsroom staff in a cost-cutting move in May 2007.[20] Newspaper executives pointed to growth of SFGate, the online website with 5.2 million unique visitors per month – fifth among U.S. newspaper websites in 2007.
In February 2009, Hearst chief executive Frank A. Bennack Jr., and Hearst President Steven R. Swartz, announced that the Chronicle had lost money every year since 2001 and more than $50 million in 2008. Without major concessions from employees and other cuts, Hearst would put the papers up for sale and, if no buyer was found, shut the paper. San Francisco would have become the first major American city without a daily newspaper.[21] The cuts were made.
In spite of – or perhaps because of – the threats, the loss of readers and advertisers accelerated. On October 26, 2009, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that the Chronicle had suffered a 25.8% drop in circulation for the six-month period ending September 2009, to 251,782 subscribers, the largest percentage drop in circulation of any major newspaper in the United States.[22] Chronicle publisher Frank Vega said the drop was expected as the paper moved to earn more from higher subscription fees from fewer readers.[23] In May 2013, Vega retired and was replaced as publisher by former Los Angeles Times publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson.[24] SFGate, the main digital portal for the San Francisco Chronicle, registered 19 million unique visitors in January 2015, making it the seventh-ranked newspaper website in the United States.[25]