Five months after the debut of The Hook, an alternative news weekly that targets a readership similar to the C'ville Weekly, the two papers continue to battle for dominance.
C'ville Weekly began 13 years ago and pushed aside The Observer as the dominant free weekly paper in Charlottesville.
In February, competition arose when C'ville Weekly co-founder and former editor Hawes Spencer started his own paper after being ousted from C'ville by his two co-owners.
Although The Hook is not yet turning a profit, Spencer said he firmly believes "the tide will turn," and within a year his paper will be the best weekly paper in Charlottesville.
"We have enough funding so our ad sales could dip and we'd still be around for a year," Spencer said.
Spencer said he believes The Hook will oust its competitor because his paper places a greater emphasis on hard news than C'ville Weekly does.
He also cites the Web site, which is "chock full of stories and useful links" as possessing a distinct advantage over the competition.
But according to C'ville Weekly Editor Cathryn Harding, history clearly favors the preexisting paper in such cases. "The upstart paper that strives to unseat the established news weekly, without any exception that I can think of, usually fails - it usually has to fold," Harding said.
Harding also said The Hook has had no discernible negative impact on C'ville Weekly's success.
"Our distribution has actually increased" in the past five months, she said. "Additionally, we have launched several new supplements to the paper, which have been very successful."
The supplements consist of a collection of stories focused on a particular topic, including fashion, homes, summertime and an upcoming literary supplement.
"They directly add to the revenue and content base," Harding said.
The existence of a competitor has not dampened revenues at C'ville Weekly, General Manager Bryce McGregor said.
"We're right on target for our budget year to date, which was designed before The Hook came to be," McGregor said.
Advertising sales, which are the source of most of the business's revenue, also have remained stable, he said.
To gauge the success of alternative news weeklies, Harding said a standard measure is simply to look at the number of pages.
Since its inception, The Hook consistently has produced a weekly paper of about 44 pages. During the same time frame, C'ville Weekly's papers have ranged from 60 to 90 pages.
Spencer said although he admits The Hook is smaller than C'Ville Weekly, the discrepancy can be attributed entirely to the age of the papers.
"I'm pleased that we've been at 44 - it took C'ville six or seven years to get to that size," Spencer said.
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