Community Corner

St. Petersburg Times' Name Change: What Do You Think?

Starting Jan. 1, 2012, the newspaper will be known as the Tampa Bay Times. Does that change your perception of the paper?

The St. Petersburg Times will be changing its name to the Tampa Bay Times next year, the newspaper announced Tuesday.

"The new name reflects the growth of our newspaper and our vision for this region," Chairman and CEO Paul Tash wrote in a column that appeared in Tuesday's edition.

Accoding to Tash, three-fourths of the Times' readers live outside St. Petersburg, and "our name no longer fits the newspaper or the audience we serve." Still, Tash said, the new name "does not signal any change in our coverage, our standards or our ownership — which remains local and independent."

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The Times is owned by the nonprofit The Poynter Institute, which reports that the company won unlimited use of the name Tampa Bay Times following a 2006 settlement with the Tampa Tribune. It had been using the name for its free daily tabloid, known as tbt*.

The name change will take effect on Jan. 1, 2012, the 100-year anniversary of Pinellas County, where the paper is based.

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