In 2006, the Southtown was named Newspaper of the Year among the nation's large circulation suburban dailies by Suburban Newspapers of America and the American Press Institute.

Reporters attended school and county meetings, but their efforts could not match the combined resources of the smaller suburban dailies.

He added that the biggest growth areas for newspapers would be in small suburban dailies, although the major dailies in Atlanta and Los Angeles were also doing extremely well.

Later in 2004, Mr. Anschutz bought Journal Newspapers Inc., publisher of three suburban dailies in the Washington area, and renamed them The Washington Examiner.

Today, metropolitan areas have dozens of publications - from tiny urban weeklies to giant suburban dailies - fighting to be heard and scrambling for advertising.

He said Mr. Cooke would primarily work to revamp the content and design of the suburban dailies owned by the Sun-Times News Group.

"The suburban dailies have molded their content to a new suburban way of life," Mrs. Kaniss said.

Industry executives say the paper has aggressively sought to fend off advertising competition, for example, from strong suburban dailies within 50 miles or so of the city.

The Times, like many other metropolitan newspapers, is in a monumental struggle with a host of aggressive, intensely local suburban dailies that have taken readers and advertising dollars.

Metropolitan papers, facing dwindling readership and depressed business conditions in their home cities, are trying to steal the readers - and ads - of suburban dailies.