For the week of November 24-30, 2005:

The Stranger: 108
Seattle Weekly: 108

Please note: This was a regular issue for the Stranger and a special issue for Seattle Weekly. It was one of the Weekly’s four—count `em: four—frostily anticipated “gift guides.” Sometimes a special issue of the Weekly is larger than a regular issue of The Stranger. Not this week. This year’s gift guide #1 is the smallest gift guide #1 since 1993. The Stranger was a 28 page paper that week in 93.

In other Weekly news: The Department of Justice has given their blessing to the merger between the Weekly’s owners, Village Voice Media, and New Times. The new company, controlling 17 papers, will keep the VVM name, but the New Times folks will be running the show. This means that the hairy-breasted matriarchs overseeing (mothering?) the incredible shrinking Seattle Weekly will be taking their orders from the hairy-chested testosterone junkies at New Times HQ in Phoenix, Arizona. For those keeping track at home: This is the 4th owner of the Seattle Weekly since 1997. Yet another new design and yet another staff shake-up is expected.

Why did the DOJ have to approve the merger? Well, because the two companies ran afoul of the DOJ in 2002 when VVM made a deal with New Times to close their competing paper in Clevland if New Times would close its competing paper in LA. The two companies were accused in 2003 of colluding to create a monopoly.