Strength in the Afternoon

Each morning, when Lord Thomson of Fleet wakes up in Buckinghamshire, he can never be quite sure how many newspapers he owns. Even if he knew the precise count before he went to bed, the figure could easily have changed overnight -- such is the pace at which he has been accumulating papers. His latest acquisition is the Brush-Moore chain of twelve dailies and six weeklies scattered around the U.S.

Shortly before, he picked up the Valdosta (Ga.) Times. This brings his world wide total to 160 papers, of which nearly 50 are in the U.S. -- the largest number ever owned by a noncitizen and the largest number currently owned by any U.S. publisher.

All of Thomson's U.S. papers are in cities with populations under 125,000, and that goes for the latest purchase as well. The Brush-Moore papers range from the Canton (Ohio) Repository (circ. 73,000) and the San Gabriel Val ley (Calif.) Tribune (72,000) to the Weirton (W. Va.) Daily Times (6,600).

The chain was started in 1923, when Louis H. Brush, a young publisher with two Ohio papers, and Roy Moore, sales manager for King Features, raised $550,000 to buy the Marion (Ohio) Star from President Warren Harding two months before his death.

Upset Mothers. As the chain grew over the years, the papers developed much the same look. In general, they use wire services to cover national and international news -- to which they give front-page display -- while their own reporters cover local events. The papers follow a conservative line, are staunch civic boosters. The Repository has campaigned for the establishment of a professional-football hall of fame in Canton. It has been similarly attentive to the locally based Timken Roller Bearing Co., world's largest tapered roller-bearing manufacturer. "I can't remember the Rep ever speaking out against anything the Timken family wanted," says a Canton businessman. About the harshest criticism leveled at the Ports mouth (Ohio) Times, according to Editor George W. Stowell, comes from "mothers who are upset when we fail to cover Little League baseball games."

All the dailies have the distinction of being afternoon papers in one-newspaper towns. That means they all make money -- and are likely to continue to do so. For that reason, profits-conscious Thomson was willing to pay a hefty $75 million for them.

Affairs in Order. "We've known these people for years," says St. Clair Mc-Cabe, Thomson's general manager for North America, "but we never thought they'd sell." Brush-Moore sold because its owners were losing interest in the newspaper business and wanted to set their estate affairs in order. One group of stockholders tried to hold on to a few papers, but Thomson was adamant about getting them all. The only thing he did not get was the chain's one radio station, WHBC, in Canton; the 1912 Communications Act forbids an alien to hold a station license.* "We gave the Thomson group first chance," says Brush-Moore President G. Gordon Strong, "because we knew they wish to preserve this organization intact and operate the papers with a maximum degree of local autonomy."

In keeping with Thomson's low-keyed approach to control, none of the papers was particularly put out at the change in ownership. The fact was duly noted in front-page stories, with congratulations extended to all parties. "If there was any response at all," says Portsmouth Times News Editor Everette Parker, "it was sort of a feeling of pride in being part of one of the biggest newspaper acquisitions in history."

* Passed in time of threatening war as a security measure.

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