MLive Media Group, originally known as Booth Newspapers, or Booth Michigan, is a media group that produces

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

s from the state of

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

. Founded by

George Gough Booth George Gough Booth (September 24, 1864 – April 11, 1949) was the publisher of the privately held Evening News Association, a co-founder of Booth Newspapers (now MLive Media Group), and a philanthropist. Biography He was born on September 24, 1 ...

with his two brothers, Booth Newspapers was sold to

Advance Publications Advance Publications, Inc. is a privately held American media company owned by the families of Donald Newhouse and Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr., the sons of company founder Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. It owns publishing-related companies inc ...

, a Samuel I. Newhouse property, in 1976. MLive Media Group newspaper publications include ''

The Ann Arbor News ''The Ann Arbor News'' is a newspaper serving Washtenaw and Livingston counties in Michigan. Published daily online through MLive.com, the paper also publishes print editions on Thursdays and Sundays. History Original publication Published i ...

'',''

The Bay City Times ''The Bay City Times'' is a newspaper published in Bay City, Michigan, United States, published Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, with a Tuesday edition jointly published with ''The Saginaw News''. The paper is published by Booth Newspapers, owned ...

'', ''

The Flint Journal ''The Flint Journal'' is a quad-weekly newspaper based in Flint, Michigan, owned by Booth Newspapers, a subsidiary of Advance Publications. Published Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, it serves Genesee, Lapeer and Shiawassee Counti ...

'', ''

The Grand Rapids Press ''The Grand Rapids Press'' is a daily newspaper published in Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 20 ...

'', ''

Jackson Citizen Patriot ''Jackson Citizen Patriot'' is a daily newspaper published in Jackson, Michigan. Since 2012, the ''Citizen Patriot'' has been published at AnnArbor.com printing facility in Ann Arbor Ann Arbor is a city in Washtenaw County, Michigan, Unit ...

'', ''

Kalamazoo Gazette The ''Kalamazoo Gazette'' is the daily newspaper in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and is part of MLive Media Group, Michigan's largest local media organization. The ''Gazette'' publishes seven days a week. Papers are available for home delivery on Thur ...

'', ''

Muskegon Chronicle The ''Muskegon Chronicle'' is a daily newspaper in Muskegon, Michigan, owned by MLive Media Group. It was founded in 1857. Because of common ownership with ''The Grand Rapids Press, Grand Rapids Press'', the ''Chronicle''s coverage and distributi ...

'', ''

The Saginaw News ''The Saginaw News'' is a newspaper publication based in Saginaw, Michigan, owned by MLive Media Group, originally known as Booth Newspapers or Booth Michigan, a division of Advance Publications. Published on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays (alon ...

'', and ''

Advance Newspapers Advance Newspapers, based in Hudsonville, Michigan, published weekly community newspapers for Kent County, Michigan and portions of Muskegon, Ottawa, and Allegan counties. Advance Newspapers started as an independent company, later purchased by ...

''. The company also maintains newsrooms in Lansing and Detroit. All of Advance Publications' Michigan content is published on Mlive.com.

History

Early history

Booth Newspapers was founded by

and his brothers in 1893 and was a media company based in

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...

. In 1976, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. of

acquired Booth Newspapers for $305 million, the . The Herald Company, Inc. merged with Booth Newspapers, Inc. in July 1987. In September 2002, Booth Newspapers acquired

21st Century Newspapers 21st Century Newspapers was a corporation owning newspapers in the state of Michigan and based in Pontiac, Michigan, and founded in 1995. History Frank Shepherd was born December 20, 1941, to Velma J.(Johnston) and Homer F. Shepherd in Port Hur ...

, Inc.'s Heritage Newspapers' Suburban Flint Newspaper Group which had nine local papers: ''

Clio Messenger In Greek mythology, Clio ( , ; ), also spelled Kleio, Сleio, or Cleo, is the muse of history, or in a few mythological accounts, the muse of lyre-playing. Etymology Clio's name is derived from the Greek root κλέω/κλείω (meaning "t ...

'', ''

Davison Flagstaff Davison may refer to: * Davison (surname) Places in the United States * Davison, Michigan, a suburb of Flint * Davison Township, Michigan * Davison Freeway, a highway in Detroit, Michigan *Davison County, South Dakota Other uses * Davison Desig ...

'', ''

Fenton Press Fenton or Fentons may refer to: Places Australia * Fentons Creek, Victoria Canada * Fenton, Saskatchewan United Kingdom * Fenton, Cambridgeshire, with neighbouring Pidley, part of the parish of Pidley cum Fenton * Fenton, Cumbria * ...

'', ''

Grand Blanc News Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor Places * Grand, Oklahoma, USA * Grand, Vosges, village and commune in France with Gallo-Roman amphitheatre * Grand County (disambiguation), ...

'', ''

Flint Township News Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start fire ...

'', ''

Flushing Observer Flushing may refer to: Places Netherlands * Flushing, Netherlands, an English name for the city of Vlissingen, Netherlands United Kingdom * Flushing, Cornwall, a village in Cornwall, England * The Flushing, a building in Suffolk, Englan ...

'', ''

Holly Press ''Ilex'' () or holly is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen or ...

'', ''

Suburban Burton A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

'', and ''

Swartz Creek News Swartz may refer to: ;Places * Swartz, Louisiana * Swartz Creek (disambiguation) * Swartz Bay, British Columbia on the north end of the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island ** Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal * Swartz Nunataks, in Antarctica ;People * S ...

'', and included ''Suburban Flint Shopper''. All of these operated with ''The Flint Journal'' as the Community Newspapers. In December 2006, the Herald Company, Inc. merged with Advance Magazine Publisher, Inc. but continues to operate under the Booth Newspapers name in Michigan. On November 3, 2008, the day before the 2008 presidential election, many copies of Booth newspapers were delivered inside a white advertising wrapper, paid for by the

National Rifle Association The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent Gun politics in the United States, gun rights ...

, with "Defend Freedom, Defeat

Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. Ob ...

" written across the outside. The bags were mostly reported with ''The Flint Journal'', but there were also similar reports from customers of ''The Saginaw News'' and ''The Bay City Times''. ''The Flint Journal'' posted a short apology on its website that stated that "The wrapper was supposed to be inserted into the newspaper." The ''Journal'' also told

WJRT-TV WJRT-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Flint, Michigan, United States, serving as the American Broadcasting Company, ABC affiliate for northeastern Michigan. Owned by Allen Media Group, the station maintains studios on Lapeer R ...

, who also received a flood of calls about the incident, that there was "some miscommunication" with the paper carriers. The three papers mentioned endorsed Barack Obama for president. On March 23, 2009, Booth Newspapers announced in ''

'' that it would end the paper's 174-year print run in July 2009, due to economic difficulties, and be replaced by ''

AnnArbor.com ''AnnArbor.com'' was an online newspaper that covered local news of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the surrounding Washtenaw County. In 2013 ''AnnArbor.com'' was transitioned to MLive.com along with Advance Publications other Michigan newspapers and r ...

'', a daily web paper that will have a twice-weekly print edition. Also on this date, Booth announced that beginning June 1, 2009, ''The Bay City Times'', ''The Saginaw News'', and ''The Flint Journal'' would reduce publishing to three times a week (Thursday, Friday, and Sunday) while increasing their web presence; the three newspapers would add a Tuesday edition in March 2010, with ''The Bay City Times'' and ''The Saginaw News'' sharing an edition.

MLive consolidation

On February 2, 2012, Booth Newspapers split into two companies: MLive Media Group and Advance Central Services Michigan. MLive Group handles advertising and news for all newspapers and websites. Advance Central Services handles human resources, production, and distribution. At the same time, home delivery of Booth's remaining daily newspapers was reduced to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays with subscribers receiving e-editions on the other days on which they print. Also in 2012, Mlive contracted with former

WEYI-TV WEYI-TV (channel 25) is a television station licensed to Saginaw, Michigan, United States, serving the Great Lakes Bay Region of Central Michigan as an affiliate of NBC. Owned by Howard Stirk Holdings, WEYI-TV is operated by Sinclair Broadcas ...

meteorologist Mark Torregrossa to run the website's weather section with the expectation of increasing the section's views from 900,000 to 1 million. Instead by 2014, the section received on average 5 million to 6 million page views with a high in January 2014 of 13 million. In 2012, the former 21st Century Newspapers-owned papers in the Flint area had all ceased publication, although the ''Clio Messenger'' had stopped publishing two years prior. In 2013

joined MLive Media Group, which was established in 2012 as the Michigan brand for

. At that time, AnnArbor.com's web presence was integrated with the other Michigan properties under the MLive.com URL and the

newspaper returned to its historical identity as ''

''. In 2019, a similar group of Booth/Advance/MLive-owned community newspapers in the

Grand Rapids Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...

area, operating under the banner

, also ceased publishing. In March 2020, MLive Media Group announced Tim Gruber as the President and Chief Revenue Officer.

References

External links

* * {{Advance Publications Newspapers published in Michigan Newspaper companies of the United States Companies based in Grand Rapids, Michigan Advance Publications 1976 mergers and acquisitions American corporate subsidiaries