Clarín was created by Roberto Noble, former minister of the Buenos Aires Province, on 28 August 1945. It was one of the first Argentine newspapers published in tabloid format. It became the highest sold Argentine newspaper in 1965, and the highest sold Spanish-speaking newspaper in 1985. It was also the first Argentine newspaper to sell a magazine with the Sunday edition, since 1967. In 1969, the news were split into several supplements by topic. In 1976, high colour printing was benefited by the creation of AGR. For many years the Argentine author Horacio Estol was the New York correspondent of Clarin, writing about aspects of US life of interest to Argentines. Roberto Noble died in 1969, and his widow Ernestina Herrera de Noble succeeded him as director. The newspaper bought Papel Prensa in 1977, together with La Nación and La Razón. In 1982, it joined a group of 20 other newspapers to create the "Diarios y Noticias" informative agency. The Sunday magazine was renamed in 1994 to "Viva", a name that would last up to modern day. The newspaper started a media conglomerate in 1999 after a law reformation which allows it to collect many different media supports, that would be named after the newspaper, Grupo Clarín. This conglomerate would operate in radio, television, Internet, other newspapers and other areas beyond Clarín itself. On 27 December 1999, The Clarín Group and Goldman Sachs, an American investment firm, subscribed an investment agreement where the consortium, managed by Goldman Sachs, made a direct investment in Clarín Group. The operation implied an increase of capital to the Clarin Group and the incorporation of Goldman Sachs as minority partner, with a participation of 18% of the stocks. Clarín launched clarin.com, the website for the newspaper, in March 1996. The site served nearly 6 million unique visitors daily in Argentina in April 2011, making it the fifth most visited website in the country that month and the most widely visited of any website based in Argentina itself. There was a conflict between the government of Fernández de Kirchner and the Clarín Group from 2008 until 2015 over a variety of issues. The Clarín Group is the biggest media holding in Argentina, not only publishes the Clarín newspaper but also owns the country major cable operator Cablevisión, a major commercial broadcast televisionCanal 13, a number of cable networks, and hundreds of radio licenses.
Circulation
Clarín prints and distributes around 330,000 copies throughout the country, but by 2012, circulation had declined to 270,444 copies and Clarín accounted for nearly 21 percent of Argentine newspaper market, compared to 35 percent in 1983. Clarín has a 44 percent market share in Buenos Aires. According to third-party web analytics providers Alexa and SimilarWeb, Clarín's website is the 10th and 14th most visited in Argentina respectively, as of August 2015. SimilarWeb rates the site as the 3rd most visited news website in Argentina, attracting almost 32 million visitors per month.
