"Israel Hayom" is currently making a final severance of its business connections with the Haaretz group. Sources inform "Globes" that in recent weeks, the newspaper halted the printing its remaining copies at the Graphoprint printing house in Tel Yitzhak, which belongs to "Haaretz," and recently announced that it would no longer use "Haaretz's" distribution services.
Printing will be transferred to the "Israel Hayom" printing house in Bat Yam, while distribution will be given to Intellect, which provides distribution services to newspapers controlled by Sheldon Adelson.
For years, most of the printing of "Israel Hayom," a newspaper distributed free of charge, took place at the "Haaretz" printing house, until "Israel Hayom" acquired the "Maariv" printing house a year ago.
While most of the newspaper's copies are distributed for free by booth operators at various locations, "Israel Hayom" continued to use Haaretz's" distributors to deliver newspapers to its subscribers' homes. "Israel Hayom's" subscribers are estimated at 10,000. In order to facilitate distribution, printing of those copies continued at the printing house in Tel Yitzhak.
"Israel Hayom" notified "Haaretz" several months ago of its intention to completely stop printing copies in Tel Yitzhak, and to transfer the printing to Bat Yam. As a result of this decision, "Israel Hayom" also announced in the recent days that it would no longer use "Haaretz's" distribution. "Israel Hayom" is therefore completely breaking off its business relations with "Haaretz-TheMarker." The total loss of income involved totaled tens of millions of shekels over the past year.
Since "Israel Hayom" acquired "Makor Rishon," its distribution has also been moved to Intellect. It is believed that over the past month, the newspaper has been making efforts to establish a more up-to-date distribution system. In recent weeks, Intellect has contacted "Makor Rishon" distributors, and has proposed increasing their work hours for the purpose of daily distribution of "another newspaper."
"Haaretz" confirmed the report, while "Israel Hayom" refused to comment.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 23, 2014
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