Qualification of newspapers to receive compensation for publication of legal notices and requirements relating to publication

Under current law, in addition to bona fide circulation, a newspaper must generally meet one of the following criteria to qualify for compensation: 1) for at least two of the five years immediately before the date of publication of a notice, have been published regularly and continuously in the city, village, or town where published;

2) be a successor to such a newspaper and resumed publication following succession;

or 3) have merged or consolidated with one or more other newspapers and one of the newspapers involved has been continuously published at regular intervals of at least once each week for at at least 50 issues each year for at least one year prior to the first publication of the notice. The bill modifies the first qualification, eliminating the requirement that a newspaper be published regularly and continuously in the city, village, or town where published for at least two of the five years immediately before the date of publication of a notice, and instead allowing a newspaper to qualify that has been published at least once a week for at least 50 consecutive issues prior to the first publication of the notice in the city, village, or town where published.

Under current law, if there is not a newspaper in a city, village, or town that meets any of the general criteria, a newspaper may still qualify for compensation under an alternative provision if the newspaper is published regularly and continuously in the city, village, or town, publishing in the newspaper is likely to give notice in the area or to the affected person, and the newspaper is otherwise qualified for compensation. The bill changes the alternative criteria, modifying the “regularly and continuously” requirement to a requirement that the newspaper be circulated at least once each week for at least 50 issues each year for one year prior to the first publication of the notice in the city, village or town and requiring that the newspaper contain, on average, at least 10 percent news content per issue. The bill also provides an exception to the definition of “newspaper” to allow newspapers to qualify under these alternative criteria.

The bill adds a requirement that a newspaper that publishes a legal notice must place an electronic copy of the legal notice at no additional charge on that newspaper's Internet site in addition to the current law requirement to place an electronic copy on the Wisconsin newspapers legal notices Internet site. Under the bill, every newspaper that publishes legal notices must have an Internet site and must include on its home page a prominent link to the newspaper's legal notices section. The bill requires that a newspaper's legal notices section must be available for viewing at no cost to the public and must include a link to the Wisconsin newspapers legal notices Internet site.

Finally, the bill provides that a tear sheet proof of a multiple insertion notice that must, upon request, be mailed to an advertiser or the advertiser's attorney within 72 hours after the first insertion may be sent in electronic format.