Creative Loafing
Creative Loafing is the name of four alternative weekly newspapers published by Tampa Bay, Florida-based Creative Loafing, Inc. Creative Loafing has editions published in Atlanta, Georgia, Charlotte, North Carolina, Tampa Bay and Sarasota, Florida. All four newspapers share some columns and articles, but each city's edition focuses on local reporting of news, culture, and entertainment. Creative Loafing Tampa and Creative Loafing Sarasota were published under the name Weekly Planet from 1994 and 1998, respectively, until September 2006.
Creative Loafing Atlanta, first published in 1972, is the oldest of the four papers, and currently has the largest circulation of the four papers, at around 130,000. This makes it one of the top twenty alternative weeklies in the United States, as indexed by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. In 1987, the owners of Atlanta's Creative Loafing established Creative Loafing Charlotte in North Carolina. Creative Loafing, Inc. also once owned a paper in Savannah, Georgia, Creative Loafing Savannah, (OCLC 35905461) which later became Connect Savannah.
In 2000, founders Deborah and Elton Eason sold their shares to a group of investors led by their son Ben Eason. Eason, who owned the Weekly Planet newspapers, merged these papers into Creative Loafing. As part of the deal, Cox Enterprises also bought a 25% share in Creative Loafing, Inc. This partnership went sour in 2004 after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, also owned by Cox, launched its own entertainment newsweekly with a similar format to Creative Loafing. Accusing Cox of underhanded dealing, Creative Loafing, Inc. bought back the shares in 2004.
On July 24, 2007, Creative Loafing announced the purchase of the Washington City Paper and The Chicago Reader, along with the Reader's properties The Straight Dope and the SDMB, the associated message board.
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