The San Antonio Express-News is a daily newspaper that circulates in San Antonio, Texas. It is owned by an American mass media company named Hearst Communications. The San Antonio Express-News is considered the fourth-largest newspaper in Texas, and back in 2016, it sold about 100,000 copies. Today, the newspaper operates online as Express-News. In this article, we’re going to know more about the history of the San Antonio Express-News.
History
The San Antonio Express was first published as a weekly tabloid-style newspaper in 1865. During that time, San Antonio had several other newspapers that are published in different languages. As the years passed, most of these publications went out of business and left the Express the duty to deliver the city the most important News.
In December 1866, the Express decided to shift from being a weekly paper to a daily newspaper. And by the 1870s, they decided to turn it into a full newspaper. During these times, the Express was led by different people and some of which almost doomed the paper; until the Express Printing Company decided to take control of the publication in 1875 and save it from decline. The new management then changed the Express to a daily morning newspaper in 1878.
A rival newspaper named the Evening Light was published in 1881 by J.P Newcomb and A.W Gifford, both of them was an early investor in the Express. The Evening Light was an afternoon paper, not like the Express, which is a morning paper; that is why the editors of the Express initially chose to ignore the Evening Light. However, The Light seemed that it grew in popularity, especially during the turn of the 20th century. In 1906, the Daily Light was bought by a man named E.B Chandler, who also purchased the San Antonio Gazette. He then decided to merge it into one newspaper and called it the Light and Gazette.
In 1918, the Express launched its afternoon newspaper, which is called the San Antonio Evening News. At some point, this move made the Express and the News employees to become somewhat rivals.
On the other hand, the Express and the News both took the lead to the Light when it comes to the number of sales. But, the Light had a few tricks up its sleeves, and they decided to include several popular comic strips into their newspaper. While the Express Publishing is focused on diversifying its reach and purchased more radio stations and a television station named the KENS-TV, which stands for K-Express News Station. In the 1960s, the Harte-Hanks newspaper group decided to buy the Express Publishing.
Thirteen years later, the Light beat the Express and News when it comes to circulation numbers, which led to new ownership of the Express. Rupert Murdoch decided to buy the News and Express from Harte-Hanks. He re-formatted the News and turned it into a more tabloid-style newspaper, while the Express retained its conservative formant. These changes forced the Light to compete against two different styles of publications.
In 1984, the Express and the News merged and became the Express-News with its afternoon issue slowly discontinued. By this time, the Express-News is already owned by News Corp., and both of the newspapers started to adopt a more mainstream format and decided to bring the paper to the communities outside Bexar County. This move made the Express-News as San Antonio’s leading newspaper.
In 1992, News Corp. decided to diversify its reach into television and movies. That is why they announced that they are going to sell the Express-News. The Hearst Corporation agreed to acquire the Express-News to keep its stake in the San Antonio market.
Since then, the Express-News slowly became one of the nationally recognized news organization. It also managed to garner several awards throughout the years.
