The Signal sold to former publisher

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The 99-year-old Santa Clarita Valley Signal newspaper has been sold to Westridge residents and longtime publishers Richard and Chris Budman, it was announced today.

Richard Budman was publisher of The Signal from 2004-07.

In a meeting this morning, former Signal Publisher Chuck Champion informed staff of the purchase. Champion of Paladin Capital Partners had owned The Signal with business partners Gary Sproule, Russ Briley and Ken DePaola since January 2016.

The sale is effective immediately.

“I am very proud to be back at The Signal. I love this paper. I love Santa Clarita,” Richard Budman said. “My mission is to build on The Signal’s rich history of providing vital and quality information to our community.”

The Budmans bought The Signal’s parent company Paladin Multimedia Group in an equity purchase at an undisclosed price.

Richard Budman, who has been in the publishing business for 30 years, said he intends to boost The Signal’s presence in the community by expanding the publishing of the newspaper to six days a week from the current five days. The Signal cut back to publishing five days a week from seven days in 2015. He said the Sunday newspaper will be distributed free to 75,000 households in the Santa Clarita Valley to give “full value to advertisers.”

He added that there will be an expansion in staff and resources so that the editorial content can be expanded and more advertising can be sold.

“We’re going to make the paper relevant again,” he said.

In addition to being Signal publisher from 2004-07 and a minority owner of the newspaper with Morris Multimedia during that time, Richard Budman founded Santa Clarita Living magazine in 2001, as well as the Santa Clarita This Week newspaper. He also took over SCVTV as a commercial endeavor during that time and instituted video in The Signal operations in the early 2000s.

For the last several years, he has owned news and lifestyle publications in the communities of the South Bay.

Richard Budman said that in addition to adding a Sunday newspaper, the new owners plan to boost the marketing of The Signal to boost its brand throughout the Santa Clarita Valley.

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