The Nashville Banner is a defunct daily newspaper of Nashville, Tennessee, United States, which published from April 10, 1876 until February 20, 1998. The Banner was published each Monday through Friday afternoon (as well as Saturdays until the 1990s and Sundays until 1937), and at one time carried as many as five editions.
The Banner relaunched in March 18, 2024 as a digital-only news outlet, funded by sponsorships and donations.
It was long a voice of conservative viewpoints in contrast to its liberal morning counterpart, The Tennessean, although these views were greatly moderated in the paper's twilight years. In its relaunch, the outlet has been significantly less conservative and is regarded as moderate.
History
The first edition of the Nashville Banner was published on April 10, 1876.[1] It was begun as a voice for the railroads and other interests in comparison with other area papers of the time which tended to take the viewpoint of workers and unions. It was long controlled by the Stahlman family.[1]
The Banner was an evening paper, which at one time published as many as five editions (first, second, market final, sports final, and sunset final), although these were later consolidated into three editions, and eventually, two. For many years it was in a superior financial condition to its competitors, and in fact, when the rival Tennessean went bankrupt and almost had to cease publication, the Banner assisted in its purchase by the Evans family, who saved it. The Tennessean and the Banner entered into what was one of the first joint operating agreements in the U.S. in 1937. Under this agreement, which became a common model for many other cities over the next half-century, the papers maintained editorial independence and remained separate as news-gathering organizations. However, they were printed on the same presses, distributed by a common agent, and had a consolidated classified advertising department. They were fierce competitors in the realm of news and ideas, but no longer business competitors in the truest sense.
This arrangement stood both papers in good stead for many years. However, the Banner began to suffer in the post-World War II era from the slow loss of readership that became common to most U.S. evening papers, which was largely attributed to the rise of television.
Though the two papers shared many vital resources, they were vastly different in their editorial agendas. One memorable instance of such differences occurred during the mid-1960s as the merits of Daylight Saving Time were being debated. The Tennessean/Banner offices, at the time, featured a dual-sided clock on the roof. One side had the Tennessean logo, the other had the Banner's. Silliman Evans, Jr., owner of the Tennessean, supported DST and set its clock accordingly during the summer hours, but the Stahlman family, who controlled the Banner, opted to keep their side of the clock on standard time, causing confusion for the many drivers and pedestrians on busy Broadway.[2]
Ed Huddleston wrote for The Banner including coverage of the Civil War in Middle Tennessee in 1965 for the centennial of the war’s end[3] and the fight to save the historic Bijou Theatre, demolished as part of an urban renewal plan and replaced by the Municipal Auditorium.[4]
In the early 1970s the Stahlmans sold the Banner to the Gannett Co. Gannett published it for several years, but in 1979 announced that it was assuming publication of the Tennessean while selling the Banner back to local owners Irby C. Simpkins, Jr., Brownlee O. Currey, and John Jay Hooker (Hooker later sold his stake in the paper to Simpkins and Currey).
The Banner shared these offices at 1100 Broadway with The Tennessean. The Banner's masthead design occupied the location of the Gannett logo in this photograph, but was removed shortly after the paper ceased publishing.
Although it took almost twenty years, this was the death knell for the Banner. It was now clearly inferior in resources to its morning counterpart, and its circulation continued to shrink. In the 1980s Gannett insisted on renegotiation of the joint operating agreement to its benefit, and the Banner had little choice but to comply. Another reason for the weakness of the Banner was its lack of a Sunday edition comparable to the Tennessean's, which it had given up in the formation of the joint operating agreement. It had since always published on a six-day schedule, and as weekday papers, especially evening weekday papers, continued to decline, it did not have this profit center to draw upon. The Banner switched its Saturday edition for a while to a single, morning edition in direct competition with the Tennessean, then announced that it was terminating its Saturday edition entirely.
During this time, the Banner began to take far more moderate positions on issues on its editorial pages, although it generally remained more conservative than the Tennessean in most areas. It was in the contradictory situation of probably becoming more respected by people, especially those in the journalism community, at the same time that it was becoming less read.
The Banner adopted several new technologies soon before its demise, including early online efforts such as the launch of a daily e-mail newsletter ("Nashville Banner Digest") in 1996, as usage of e-mail and the World Wide Web was becoming more common. It also built and maintained a website nearly a year before The Tennessean, although only five months before the Banner went out of business. The Banner newsroom also became one of the nation's first to convert to the exclusive use of digital photography, completing the conversion just a few months before it ceased publication.[2]
Closing and Re-Launch
The end occurred when the Gannett Co. made the publishers of the Banner a large offer to terminate the joint operating agreement. The offer was approximately $65 million,[5] likely more than any profit that could have been made by the continued publication of the Banner, so it ceased to exist. (This was not considered by the Justice Department to be an antitrust violation, but when Gannett attempted to do the same thing with its Honolulu Advertiser and the evening paper in that joint operating agreement, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, only a few months later, it was prosecuted as such, the merger was forestalled, and both papers continued to operate until 2010.)
The Banner's final edition was published on Friday, February 20, 1998.[1] The announcement to close was made public the previous Monday, February 16. Several of the Banner's popular features and reporters, including columnists Mary Hance ("Ms. Cheap") and Joe Biddle (sports), immediately went to The Tennessean.
On March 18, 2024, more than two decades later, the Nashville Banner re-launched as a free digital news outlet, funded by sponsorships and donations. The staff, though small, covers both news in the city of Nashville as well as the state legislature.[6][7]
Archives
The archives of the Nashville Banner were donated to the Nashville Public Library. The collection features the entire archive, a vending machine with the final edition still displayed in the window, the many awards the paper won over the years, various trinkets from the paper's offices, and a bronze statue of a paperboy selling the Banner which was originally placed on the plaza in front of the Tennessean/Banner offices. The archive is located at the downtown Nashville Public Library on Church Street and is open to the public.
Circulation history
Calendar Quarter Ended
Avg. paid circ.
% change
cumul. change
December 29, 1991
61,746
n/a
March 29, 1992
60,768
-1.58%
June 28, 1992
59,282
-2.45%
August 7, 1992
58,089
-2.01%
September 27, 1992
59,120
*Sat. edition dropped
December 27, 1992
59,949
1.40%
-2.91%
March 28, 1993
58,416
-2.56%
June 27, 1993
56,579
-3.14%
September 26, 1993
56,447
-0.23%
June 27, 1993
56,579
0.23%
September 26, 1993
56,447
-0.23%
December 26, 1993
56,021
-0.75%
-9.27%
March 27, 1994
56,280
0.46%
June 26, 1994
55,052
-2.18%
September 25, 1994
55,138
0.16%
December 26, 1994
54,084
-1.91%
-12.41%
March 27, 1995
52,769
-2.43%
June 26, 1995
52,793
0.05%
September 25, 1995
51,180
-3.06%
December 31, 1995
50,814
-0.72%
-17.70%
March 31, 1996
49,075
-3.42%
June 30, 1996
47,722
-2.76%
September 30, 1996
46,164
-3.26%
December 29, 1996
44,711
-3.15%
-27.59%
March 30, 1997
44,031
-1.52%
June 29, 1997
42,660
-3.11%
September 28, 1997
41,541
-2.62%
December 27, 1997
40,466
-2.59%
December 28, 1997 to February 20, 1998
40,633
0.41%
-34.19%
Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations reports on Nashville Banner, March 1997 and June 1998.
The Tennessean is a daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. Its circulation area covers 39 counties in Middle Tennessee and eight counties in southern Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett, which also owns several smaller community newspapers in Middle Tennessee, including The Dickson Herald, the Gallatin News-Examiner, the Hendersonville Star-News, the Fairview Observer, and the Ashland City Times. Its circulation area overlaps those of the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle and The Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, two other independent Gannett papers. The company publishes several specialty publications, including Nashville Lifestyles magazine.
Gannett Co., Inc. is an American mass media holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaiʻi.
The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep. It primarily serves Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties.
John Jay Hooker, Jr. was an American attorney, entrepreneur, political gadfly and perennial candidate from Nashville, Tennessee, who was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Tennessee in 1970 and 1998.
The Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 was an Act of the United States Congress, signed by President Richard Nixon, authorizing the formation of joint operating agreements among competing newspaper operations within the same media market area. It exempted newspapers from certain provisions of antitrust laws. Its drafters argued that this would allow the survival of multiple daily newspapers in a given urban market where circulation was declining. This exemption stemmed from the observation that the alternative is usually for at least one of the newspapers, generally the one published in the evening, to cease operations altogether.
The Nashville sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were part of a protest to end racial segregation at lunch counters in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The sit-in campaign, coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, was notable for its early success and its emphasis on disciplined nonviolence. It was part of a broader sit-in movement that spread across the southern United States in the wake of the Greensboro sit-ins in North Carolina.
Fred Russell was an American sportswriter from Tennessee who served as sports editor for the Nashville Banner newspaper for 68 years (1930–1998). He was a member of the Heisman Trophy Committee, president of the Football Writers Association of America and a member of several sports-related Halls of Fame. He served for nearly 30 years as chairman of the College Football Hall of Fame Honors Court, a group responsible for selecting College Football Hall of Fame members. Known for his sense of humor and story-telling ability, Russell authored several books about sports and sports humor. Over his career he wrote over 12,000 sports columns under the title, "Sideline Sidelights".
The Athens Banner-Herald is a daily newspaper in Athens, Georgia, USA, and owned by Gannett. The paper has a Sunday special and publishes online under the name Online Athens. It has been through a series of restructurings and mergers since 2000, culminating in its sale, along with several other papers, by Morris Communications to Gatehouse Media in August 2017. Since the merger of GateHouse Media and Gannett in November 2019, The Athens Banner-Herald is now owned by Gannett.
The Evansville Courier & Press is a daily newspaper based in Evansville, Indiana. It serves about 30,000 daily and 50,000 Sunday readers.
The Knoxville News Sentinel, also known as Knox News, is a daily newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, owned by the Gannett Company.
The Leaf-Chronicle is a newspaper in the state of Tennessee, founded, officially, in 1808.
The City Paper was a free, weekly newspaper that served Nashville, Tennessee from November 1, 2000 to August 9, 2013.
NashvillePost.com is an online news service covering business, politics and sports in the Nashville metropolitan area. It is locally owned and available by subscription.
The Daily News Journal, commonly abbreviated to DNJ, is a newspaper serving Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Rutherford County, and surrounding communities. It is Rutherford County's sole daily newspaper. It publishes print and digital content. Published in Murfreesboro, it serves as the primary local newspaper, with competition from The Murfreesboro Post and other publications. The newspaper is not in competition with The Tennessean of Nashville, as both are owned by Gannett. Gannett acquired DNJ from Morris Multimedia in 2004.
James Geddes Stahlman was an American newspaper publisher and philanthropist. He was the publisher of the Nashville Banner. He was opposed to desegregation.
WNVL is a radio station broadcasting a Regional Mexican music format. Licensed to Nashville, Tennessee, United States, the station is currently owned by Mark Janbakhsh, through licensee TBLC Media, LLC.
Edward Bushrod Stahlman was an American railroad executive, newspaper publisher and real estate investor. He was the vice president of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago Railroad. He built The Stahlman, a skyscraper in Nashville, Tennessee, and he was the publisher of the Nashville Banner for 44 years.
The Gallatin News Examiner is an American newspaper published in Gallatin, Tennessee. It is now owned by the media company Gannett and is published as part of the Tennessean newspaper. Gallatin News Examiner was published daily online and in print on Fridays until 2017; now Sumner/Gallatin stories are published through the Tennessean's website and twice-weekly in print. The paper is a member of the Tennessee Press Association. Its editor was Mealand Ragland-Hudgins, who became editor of the paper in 2015. In 2017, Amy Nixon was named editor of the digital and social presence of the Gallatin News Examiner.
The Knoxville Journal was a daily newspaper published in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, between 1886 and 1991. It operated first as a morning and then as an afternoon publication.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
