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Goodwill and other Intangible Assets (Tables) | 6 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2019
Goodwill [Line Items] |
Schedule of Goodwill [Table Text Block] | Changes in the carrying amount of goodwill are as follows:
| 26 Weeks Ended |
(Thousands of Dollars) | March 31 2019 |
Goodwill, gross amount | 1,535,155 |
Accumulated impairment losses | (1,288,979 | )
Goodwill, beginning of period | 246,176 |
Goodwill acquired in business combinations | 3,986 |
Goodwill, end of period | 250,162 |
Schedule of Intangible Assets [Table Text Block] | Identified intangible assets consist of the following:
(Thousands of Dollars) | March 31 2019 |  | September 30 2018 |
Nonamortized intangible assets: |  |
Mastheads | 21,883 |  | 21,883 |
Amortizable intangible assets: |  |
Customer and newspaper subscriber lists | 696,632 |  | 692,886 |
Less accumulated amortization | 603,510 |  | 594,950 |
| 93,122 |  | 97,936 |
Other intangible assets, net | 115,005 |  | 119,819 |

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- Definition Schedule of Intangible Assets [Table Text Block]- Tabular disclosure of assets, excluding financial assets and goodwill, lacking physical substance with both finite and infinite lives, by major class. + References No definition available. + Details
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- Definition Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table. + References No definition available. + Details
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- Definition Tabular disclosure of goodwill by reportable segment and in total which includes a rollforward schedule. + References Reference 1: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 350 -SubTopic 20 -Section 50 -Paragraph 1 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=108376223&loc=d3e13816-109267 Reference 2: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 350 -SubTopic 20 -Section 50 -Paragraph 2 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=108376223&loc=d3e13854-109267 + Details
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