Alternative Weekly Papers In Seattle Are Put Up For Sale

Seattle Weekly, the city’s leading alternative weekly newspaper, and its 5-year-old companion publication, Eastsideweek, are for sale. The papers are owned by Quickfish Media, a local company.

“The board has voted to explore the possibility of a sale, and explicitly a sale to a good owner at an appropriate price,” said Michael Crystal, president and chief executive officer of Quickfish.

“The paper’s hot and the market is hot, and it makes great sense to explore what kind of interest there would be both locally and nationally,” added David Brewster, Weekly publisher.

The Weekly was founded in 1976 and had a paid circulation for almost 20 years. It became a free newspaper in 1995 and has more than doubled its circulation to about 75,000.

Eastsideweek, which has been free since its inception in 1991 as an alternative weekly for the suburbs east of Lake Washington, distributes about 33,000 copies.