Rumbo shuts down Valley newspaper, moves local content to Web
McALLEN -- Rumbo, a Spanish-language weekly newspaper, is immediately suspending print operations in the Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio to concentrate on the Houston market, a top company official said late Wednesday.
Monica Lozano, senior vice president for New York-based ImpreMedia, the paper's holding company, refused to disclose how many people might be laid off as the company shifts more resources to its Houston operation.
"We're going to double our circulation in Houston," Lozano said. "Clearly the downturn in the economy is one of the critical factors."
Rumbo will employ freelancers to provide original content from the Valley and San Antonio for the paper's Web site, Lozano said.
As part of a company-wide push toward digital media, ImpreMedia partnered with popular social networking Web site MySpace.com to provide Spanish coverage of this year's presidential debates. In April the media firm launched Impre.com to consolidate its media holdings on one Web site.
"Advertising revenue has been very stable," Lozano said. "The last couple of months (ImpreMedia conducted) a very thorough review of the entire company and (we) are making an enormous investment in online."
Some employees in the closing bureaus, including Liza Elizalde, advertising director for Rumbo's Valley edition, are expected to move to Houston.
"We're doubling circulation from 50,000 to 100,000," Lozano said. "We will be supporting that, of course, with a fairly aggressive marketing campaign ... that begins Oct. 31."
Founded by Meximerica Media Inc. in 2004, Rumbo began as a full-color tabloid but became a weekly when it failed to attract sufficient advertising revenue. ImpreMedia purchased the paper in December 2007.
According to a Sept. 25 news release, ImpreMedia's print and online media reach 41 percent of all U.S Hispanic adults every month.
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Sean Gaffney covers business, the economy and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4434.
