Yellow Book buys PraireWave directory

By Dan Daly, Journal staff | Wednesday, September 26, 2007

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RAPID CITY -- Yellow Book USA has bought the Rapid City-based PrairieWave telephone directory from PrairieWave Communications, the companies confirmed.

Yellow Book publishes a local phone book that serves the Black Hills, northwest Nebraska and northeast Wyoming. The PrairieWave book primarily covers the Black Hills.

The purchase, completed earlier this month, leaves three phone-book publishers in the Black Hills market: Yellow Book, Dex Media and Gold Pages Publishing.

However, the 2008 PrairieWave book will be published next spring, according to Bruce Herman. He said the Yellow Book officials agreed to keep the PrairieWave book in publication for at least another year.

Herman was president and chief executive of PrairieWave until the company's recent merger with Georgia-based Knology. He is now vice president for strategy and development for Knology.

"As part of our negotiations, the ability to keep a local book and the PrairieWave name on the book was something that we were very pleased with," Herman said.

However, it's unclear whether Yellow Book will publish two directories next year. The existing Yellow Book usually comes out in January, and the PrairieWave book is published in May.

Contacted by the Journal, Yellow Book USA spokesman John Hartz issued a statement confirming that the company had acquired the PrairieWave directory.

"During these early days of the acquisition, Yellow Book will be taking a look at the PrairieWave directories to determine best practices that will benefit both consumers and advertisers in future directories published by the company," Hartz wrote.

Herman said PrairieWave decided to focus on its cable TV, broadband Internet and telephone business. "(The directory) wasn't part of the focus of the company, especially with Knology." Of the 11 Knology divisions, Black Hills PrairieWave was the only one with a phone book, he said.

Two years ago, before the merger, PrairieWave sold its Billings, Mont., TeleSky phone book to Yellow Book USA.

The PrairieWave phone book was initially published by Black Hills FiberCom in spring 2003. FiberCom became a division of PrairieWave in 2005.

Black Hills telephone users have long had to contend with the clutter and confusion of four telephone directories. For businesses, it's been even tougher. They must buy Yellow Page advertising in all four directories.

"It's frustrating," Don Neumiller of Neumiller Truck & Auto Body said. "I guess you just pick one, buy the biggest ad in it, and hope it's the one that gets used."

To be safe, Neumiller has been advertising in all four books. However, after 25 years in business, he believes most of his work comes from referrals and repeat business.

"I feel 20 percent, maybe 25 percent, of my business comes from (Yellow Page ads), and that's probably giving them the benefit of a doubt," he said.

Mick Nagel, owner of Mick's Electric, agrees that it's tough to find the right ad mix. For one thing, telephone-directory advertising is expensive. He pays $685 a month for his Dex listing. And the cheapest of the other books costs about $2,000 a year.

But nearly half of his business comes from telephone-directory advertising, so he doesn't feel he can cut back. Having fewer books would make it easier.

"I don't think it even helps the consumer to have all those books around the house," he said.

Angela Wolter, president of Gold Pages Publishing, said she hears the same comments from advertisers and consumers.

And she agrees with them. Four books are too many. "I think there's a lot of confusion," she said.

If the PrairieWave acquisition ends with three telephone directories in the market, Wolter believes it will be easier for everybody.

Wolter published her first Gold Pages book in 2002. Since then, Gold Pages has been the David competing against three Goliaths.

The other three are divisions of very large publishing or communications companies. Yellow Book, for example, publishes 900 directories in 46 states plus the District of Columbia. Dex, formerly Qwest Dex, was sold to R.H. Donnelley in early 2006. The merger created the nation's third-largest directory company, serving 25 million households in 28 states.

Gold Pages is locally owned and operated, and the Black Hills directory is its only publication.

Yet Gold Pages Publishing has managed to stay competitive with the big guys. Gold Pages has a Web-based directory -- about 30 percent of Rapid City callers use online directories -- and the company recently introduced a cell-phone text-message service for finding business listings.

She has considered expanding the business. "But it seems hard to do a book when you're not in the market. We live here; we're trying to put out the best phone book we can here."

Contact Dan Daly at 394-8421 or dan.daly@rapidcityjournal.com