PAGE Cooperative turns 30 this month

On April 1, 1984, PAGE Cooperative was officially open for business as the newspaper industry's first and only purchasing cooperative. This month, PAGE honors the PAGE members and Preferred and Platinum Suppliers, as well as their Partners, who have made this venture such a resounding success.

In the beginning, the founding Board of Directors set a goal of attracting 10 privately owned newspaper companies committing to invest the $15,000 Equity Membership Fee before the Cooperative was allowed to begin its long journey to build a purchasing volume that would warrant the discounts then available only to large metropolitan newspapers and publicly held newspaper chains. This Cooperative is totally and equally owned by its member companies, and over the past 30 years PAGE has grown to represent the largest combined purchasing entity for supplies, equipment and services in the newspaper industry.

PAGE membership now includes 250 newspaper corporations with 541 daily newspapers and more than 1,500 publications. The combined circulation of the daily newspapers alone approaches 10,000,000. Currently PAGE offers its membership more than 200 Preferred and Platinum Suppliers with special volume-sensitive pricing programs for all products, equipment, systems and services used by the print and online publishing industry.

The initial 10 newspaper companies – with a total of 20 daily newspapers – that joined forces to start this Cooperative included: Press-Enterprise, Bloomsburg, Penn.; Independent Newspapers Inc., Dover, Del.; Truth Publishing, Elkhart, Ind.; Drukker Communications, Passaic, N.J.; Home News Publishing, Co., New Brunswick, N.J.; Newspapers of New England, Concord, N.H.; Scranton Times, Scranton, Penn.; Morristown Daily Record, Morristown, N.J.; Times Record, Brunswick, Maine; and Observer Publishing, Washington, Penn. In addition to buying the equity in this new venture, these companies were willing to commit to buy supplies through the Cooperative to support the necessary volume-based leverage to negotiate with potential suppliers.

The Founders of the Cooperative were H. Charles Berky, CEO of PAGE; Paul R. Eyerly III, of the Bloomsburg (Penn.) Press-Enterprise; and Joe Smyth, of Independent Newspapers, Inc., headquartered in Dover, Del. The first Board of Directors in addition to these individuals included Willmot (Bin) Lewis Jr., then of the White River Junction (Vt.) Valley News and Austin Drukker, of Drukker Communications, Passaic, N.J.

John Snyder, CEO, and Stephen Schroeder, general manager, head the current PAGE Operations staff of 10, which is headquartered in King of Prussia, Penn. Information on PAGE Cooperative can be obtained by calling 800-468-9568, or through its website at www.pagecooperative.com.