Capital Newspapers Corporate Profile

Capital Newspapers is the publisher of Madison’s two daily newspapers, the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times. The Wisconsin State Journal is a division of Lee Enterprises (a publicly held communications company headquartered in Davenport, Iowa), and The Capital Times Company is a private corporation. Lee Enterprises and The Capital Times Company each own 50% of Capital Newspapers.

History of Capital Newspapers

The Wisconsin State Journal began in 1839 as an afternoon weekly called The Madison Express. In 1852, The Madison Express became the daily Wisconsin State Journal. In 1919, the Wisconsin State Journal was purchased by Lee Enterprises.

The Capital Times was founded as an afternoon daily in 1917, with its first issue coming out on December 13, 1917.

By 1947, executives at the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times began discussing the possibility of forming a third corporation that would be owned 50/50 by both newspaper companies. After months of negotiations, the State Journal agreed to become the morning and Sunday newspaper, with The Capital Times publishing in the evenings Monday through Saturday. Madison Newspapers, Inc., officially born on November 15, 1948, published its first morning and evening newspapers on February 1, 1949. In the fall of 1975, Madison Newspapers and the two newspapers moved to a new facility at 1901 Fish Hatchery Road.

In the summer of 2000, Madison Newspapers purchased Central Wisconsin Newspapers, acquiring the Baraboo News Republic, the Portage Daily Register, The Sauk Prairie Eagle, the Reedsburg Times–Press, the Juneau County Star–Times, the Wisconsin Dells Events, Shopper Stopper, the Wisconsin Reminder, Shopper Stopper Extra, the Wisconsin Reminder Extra and the Shawano Leader.

In the spring of 2002, Madison Newspapers purchased Citizen Newspaper Group (a division of Conley Publishing), acquiring the Daily Citizen, the Columbus Journal, the Shopper’s View, Neighbors, the Shopping Reminder, the Monday Marketeer, the Tri County and the Monday Mini.

On April 1st, 2003, Madison Newspapers changed its name to Capital Newspapers —a name that more accurately reflects the company’s expanding network of products and publications. At the present time, Capital Newspapers products blanket a 17-county market area that is home to over 1,000,000 people in South Central Wisconsin’s Capital Region.