ASP Westward, L.P. (Westward) publishes community newspapers in suburban metropolitan and isolated rural communities. The Company is focused on establishing and maintaining a strong franchise as the leading provider of local information and advertising.
Its largest group of papers serves the suburban communities surrounding Houston, its headquarters city. Westward also publishes a suburban group serving communities south of Denver, Colorado, and a group of isolated rural weeklies in East Texas communities, which share a common production facility.
The company's overall distribution footprint has more than doubled in the past decade primarily in the Houston market.
The Company has gone through significant management and operational changes over the past three years, and has developed a strategy that will take advantage of the significant growth opportunities in the suburban markets.
Westward has been a leader in establishing a relationship with major advertisers and bringing the market to realize the value of suburban newspapers as an advertising vehicle. Through its significant investment in a major account sales strategy, the company is positioned well to maintain and grow the local advertising that serves as the foundation of its individual newspapers, while taking full advantage of significant revenue growth from major accounts that see the value of the network of suburban community newspapers.
Strong market position in growing markets - Westward is the leading community newspaper in all of its markets. The company provides great value and maximum flexibility by offering advertisers the choice of advertising in individual newspapers, clusters of papers, or the entire market.
Leading print advertising buy for diverse local retailers / attractive value proposition for national accounts - In a majority of its markets, Westward is the leading source of print advertisements for local retailers. It has a diversified customer base of more than 22,000 advertisers.
Local orientation - Westward's editors live in communities in which they work and thus have inside knowledge on subject matters of importance to readers. Each publication is unique and editorial control rests with each paper's editor who works with 1-3 full-time reporters to cover local politics, schools and high school sports. Local advertising sales personnel are also located in the markets served by the local newspapers, focusing on providing sales and marketing support to local businesses, and offering them the flexibility of distributing their advertising message in as many or few papers needed to achieve their objectives.
