Opinion ID: 660190
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of the Enterprise Concept.

Text: 62 Under the approach we make applicable here, at least some of the Gateway newspapers' circulations should have been aggregated. First, the Gateway newspapers are certainly engaged in related activities. All of the papers in the Gateway chain supply their different communities with local suburban news otherwise not supplied by the major metropolitan newspapers. The focus of all the papers is on the local happenings in the different communities. Each of the papers is similar in much the same way individual stores in a retail chain are similar. See 29 C.F.R. Secs. 779.206 and 207. 63 Second, the Gateway newspapers clearly satisfy the unified operation or common control requirement. Although the papers serve different communities, major decisions about administration and editorial policy are made from the central office in Monroeville: the publisher decides how many pages will be in each edition; all advertising is sold from the Monroeville office; Edith Hughes, the managing editor, oversees all editorial decisions for all nineteen papers; all employment-related decisions (hiring, firing, payroll) occur at the Monroeville office; and all printing is done at the Monroeville location. All other decisions seem to be made on a group-by-group basis: the newspapers in each group operate out of the same office and have the same editor; they have common operating budgets; and the papers within each group use the same reporters. In addition, Gateway uses the circulation numbers of the groups--not the individual papers--when selling its advertising space. 64 Third, the Gateway newspapers within each geographic group have a common publishing purpose. Although the papers within each of the five regional groups have some different local news items, they are otherwise identical. The first section has a few articles of local flavor, but other pages in the first section and the other two sections contain features, editorials and advertisements common to the other papers in the regional group. The papers within each group are just slight variations of each other. Indeed, they seem to be different editions of the same paper in much the same way major metropolitan daily papers have different regional editions. See, e.g., New Beat for Urban Newspapers: Zoned Editions with a Hometown Feel, The Wash. Post, Dec. 23, 1992 at A3. 65 In sum, each geographic group of newspapers clearly constitutes one newspaper under the three part test adopted here; hence the circulation figures of the papers within each geographic group should have been aggregated. It is unclear whether, under the test we announce, all nineteen of the papers in the Gateway chain have a common publishing purpose and should have their circulations aggregated. However, we do not need to reach that question here. Because it is undisputed that the circulation within each group is above four thousand, none of the Gateway papers are small newspapers within the meaning of Sec. 13(a)(8). Accordingly, the judgment of the district court must be reversed insofar as it found Gateway the beneficiary of the small newspaper exemption.