Live Wire

By Thomas Griffith

A buyer for U.P.I.

During the past decade, while United Press International reporters, photographers and editors have aggressively battled their rivals at the Associated Press, U.P.I, itself has been battling for survival. Since 1975 the news service has had reported pretax losses of $32 million. Last year it was put up for sale by its owner, the Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co., which operates the Cincinnati Post and 50 other U.S. newspapers, plus six television and seven radio stations and six regional cable TV systems. Two serious bidders--the British news service Reuters and National Public Radio--failed to come to terms. Last week a buyer for U.P.I, came forth: Media News Corp., a consortium formed expressly for the purpose of acquiring the financially troubled wire service. Estimated price: $20 million.

U.P.I., founded in 1907 as United Press and merged in 1958 with the International News Service, has 2,000 employees and 79 overseas bureaus. Of the 1,739 daily English-language papers in the U.S., 252 subscribe to both A.P. and U.P.I., 1,087 take only A.P. and 381 take only U.P.I. As No. 2, U.P.I, operated on shoestring budgets. Nevertheless, it earned a reputation for scrappy reporting and snappy writing. But when financially squeezed newspapers had to cut back, U.P.I, became expendable.

Media News was put together a few months ago by four young entrepreneurs. Douglas Ruhe, 38, the firm's managing director, and William E. Geissler, 36, are executives of Focus Communications in Nashville, which runs a UHF pay-TV station. Cordell J. Overgaard, 48, has represented newspapers as a senior partner with the Chicago law firm of Hopkins & Sutter. Len R. Small, 39, editor and publisher of the Daily Dispatch in Moline, Ill., is a former U.P.I, foreign correspondent.

The new owners say they are intent on accelerating U.P.I.'s transition to satellite delivery of the news, improving its services, and vigorously competing with the A.P. Said Ruhe: "We feel that the greatest opportunities for growth lie in the new technologies." The Scripps company had already invested $10.5 million in a computer and communications center located in Dallas and in 500 video display terminals in U.P.I.'s 146 domestic and 60 foreign bureaus. Media News, said U.P.I. Director of Information William Adler, has "the know-how and the money to turn us around." Now it also has title to a cornucopia of highly marketable state-of-the-art publishing hardware that, some insiders point out, would sell swiftly and well in case the hoped-for turnaround fails to materialize.

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