Cape Cod Times is sold
Peter Meyer, Cape Cod Times publisher and president, announces the sale of the paper, its websites and affiliated publications as staffers listen Tuesday at the company's Main Street, Hyannis, offices.Cape Cod Times/Jim Preston
HYANNIS — For the third time in 77 years, the Cape Cod Times has a new owner.
On Tuesday, News Corp. announced that it had sold Dow Jones Local Media Group, which includes the Times, to an unnamed affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC, a New York-based asset management company.
HISTORY OF THE CAPE COD TIMES
- 1936: Cape Cod Standard-Times is first published as an independent edition of the New Bedford Standard-Times. Publisher is E. Anthony and Sons. Within a few years, the paper and its production systems move into 319 Main St., Hyannis.
- 1958: The Cape paper remodels its offices at 319 Main St. and installs new presses.
- 1966: Ottaway Newspapers buys the E. Anthony newspaper properties, including the Cape and New Bedford papers.
- 1970: Ottaway merges with Dow Jones. Also, the Cape Cod Standard-Times begins a morning edition on Saturdays.
- 1973: The Sunday editions of the New Bedford and Cape Cod papers become independent of each other.
- 1974: The Cape paper switches from hot lead type to "cold" type composition using a paste-up page and negatives.
- 1975: The paper changes its name to the Cape Cod Times.
- 1984: The Times becomes a morning paper.
- 1988: The Times moves its production facility to Independence Park in Hyannis.
- 1996: The website, www.capecodonline.com, debuts.
- 2006: Page negatives give way to digital technology and pages are designed and sent straight to plates.
- 2007: Dow Jones merges with News Corp.
- 2008: News Corp. announces it will keep Ottaway papers.
- 2013: News Corp. sells the Cape Cod Times and other papers in the Dow Jones Local Media Group to an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group Inc., and the papers will be managed by GateHouse Media Inc.
Fortress is the majority shareholder of GateHouse Media Inc., which owns more than 300 daily and weekly papers across the country, including The Patriot Ledger of Quincy and several weeklies on Cape Cod.
Dow Jones spokeswoman Colleen Schwartz declined to comment regarding the sale and declined to name the sales price.
The Times and the other 32 LMG publications and their websites will be under GateHouse management but are not merging with the company, said Peter Meyer, president of LMG's Cape Cod Media and SouthCoast Media groups and publisher of the Times. The new division will be called Local Media Group.
"We're excited about the opportunity to work with you," GateHouse CEO Mike Reed said in an email sent Tuesday to LMG employees. "We, too, strongly believe in the value of community newspapers.
As we think about the future of community publishing, we view LMG as a company with a sustainable path forward providing we collaborate, evolve our business model and execute well."
The Times' 265 employees retained their jobs in the sale; however, 10 corporate employees were let go, Meyer said. Four were corporate executives, and the remaining six were considered "corporate" although they worked in local offices, including one information technology professional who worked at the Times office in Hyannis.
The Times also publishes Cape Cod View, a monthly magazine, and PrimeTime Cape Cod, a free magazine aimed at the 50-plus market, and maintains the websites www.capecodonline.com and www.capecodtimes.com, among other products. The company also has a print distribution business called White Gull Delivery. All are included in the sale.
"I think this is a good match for what we do," Times Editor Paul Pronovost said about the relationship with GateHouse. "We speak the same language — community journalism. We look forward to moving ahead and maintaining the same high standard of journalism our readers expect from us."
LMG's other seven dailies include The Standard-Times of New Bedford; the Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald; the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y.; The Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pa.; the Mail Tribune in Medford, Ore.; the Ashland (Ore.) Daily Tidings; and The Record of Stockton, Calif.
The company's 15 weeklies include The Barnstable Patriot and The Inquirer & Mirror on Nantucket.
GateHouse Media, based in Fairport, N.Y., has 78 daily newspapers and 235 weeklies in 20 states.
Besides Quincy, GateHouse owns dailies in Fall River, Taunton, Brockton, Framingham and Milford.
Locally, it also owns The Register, The Cape Codder, The Bourne Courier, The Sandwich Broadsider, The Provincetown Banner and The Nantucket Independent. The company also operates the Wicked Local websites throughout Eastern Massachusetts.
It was not immediately clear whether content will be shared between the Local Media Group newspapers and the GateHouse publications.
Mark Maring, GateHouse vice president of investor relations, did not respond to requests for comment.
Fortress had $54.6 billion in assets under management through June of this year, according to its website. Spokesman Gordon E. Runte did not respond to messages Tuesday seeking comment.
GateHouse saw its revenues fall 5 percent in fiscal year 2012 compared with the year prior and in its latest annual report said it wasn't in the market to expand.
In the report, it states its 2008 credit was "downgraded to be rated below-investment grade by both Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service and was further downgraded in 2009 and 2010. ...
Any future long-term borrowing or the extension or replacement of our short-term borrowing will reflect the negative impact of these ratings, increase our borrowing costs, limit our financing options and subject us to more restrictive covenants than our existing debt arrangements."
In the report, the company also said, "the current economic environment in our industry and its resulting impact on us has limited our ability to grow further through acquisitions in the near-term."
Alan Mutter, a former newspaper executive who writes the blog "Reflections of a Newsosaur," said GateHouse will likely put an emphasis on maintaining profit margin and cost efficiency. But he also said the company's history of running small- to medium-size newspapers helps.
"GateHouse is nothing but phalanxes of small and medium newspapers," Mutter said. "Their understanding of that business, their scale as an operator — it's a very good fit."
Dan Kennedy, a media analyst and assistant professor at Northeastern University's School of Journalism, said the Cape Cod Times and Standard-Times have good local reputations.
"My impression is the Dow Jones local papers are staffed a little bit more fully than GateHouse papers," Kennedy said. "If I was a reader of one of the (purchased) local papers or employees, I would be concerned about that."
The Cape Cod Times was first published in 1936, as the Cape Cod Standard-Times. It first appeared as an independent edition of the New Bedford Standard-Times, and was published by E. Anthony and Sons of New Bedford.
In 1966, E. Anthony's newspaper and radio holdings were purchased by Ottaway Newspapers Inc. Ottaway maintained ownership of the Times through its 1970 merger with Dow Jones & Co., and its chairman, James Ottaway Jr., remained active as owner until Dow Jones was acquired by News Corp. in 2007.
In 1975, the Cape Cod Standard-Times was renamed as the Cape Cod Times and, nine years later, switched over from an afternoon to a morning paper.
Shortly after News Corp. purchased Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, it unsuccessfully sought a buyer for the local papers. Earlier this year, it split its entertainment arm into a new company — 21st Century Fox — separate from its newspaper division. "We are confident that the papers will prosper under the new owners, but they were not strategically consistent with the emerging portfolio of the new News," Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp., said.
Cape Cod Times sold to LocaL Weekly publisher
Gatehouse Media buys it's competitor, creates near-monopoly on Cape Cod, lays off ten
Murdocj sells what he once called "those silly, little Ottaway newspapers"
A David vs. Goliath newspaper story
Cape Codder, Register owner buys former Ottaway Newspapers
As another example of the collapse of the newspaper industry, Rupert Murdoch has sold the Cape Cod Times, the Barnstable Patriot and the Nantucket Inquirer-Mirror to Gatehouse Media the owner of the local weeklies which include The Cape Codder, The Register, the Provincetown Banner, The Harwich Oracle.That leave just two locally-owned newspapers, the Cape Cod Chronicle and the Enterprise Newspapers which have editions in the upper cape towns of Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee and Sandwich.
"This silly little Ottaway Newspapers"
Murdoch got the former Ottaway Newspaper group when he purchased the Dow Jones newspaper five years ago to acquire The Wall Street Journal. He voiced his disdain for what he got by calling them "Those silly little Ottaway Newspapers".
He put them on the market several times to no avail until Gatehouse bought them yesterday as what industry insiders call a "fire sale price".
The Cape Cod Times publisher Peter Myer said ten corporate employees were let go. The local daily's staff has 265 employees.
When will the "cost-cutting" begin?
Jon Chesto writing today in the Boston Business Journal asks two tough questions about the sale.
- Will the deal lead to cost cutting at the Local Media Group papers? Like other newspaper groups, GateHouse has been trimming its own staffs in the Boston area for the past few years. GateHouse’s cuts are notable because of the layoffs of copy editors who were replaced with two centralized copy desks. Those two desks — including one in Framingham — are now being phased out in favor of one centralized unit that will open in Austin, Texas.
- Will any smaller papers be merged or shuttered? GateHouse’s sprawling Massachusetts territory overlaps with the Local Media Group’s, as GateHouse owns the Herald News in Fall River, the Gazette in Taunton, and numerous weeklies in Southeastern Massachusetts and on Cape Cod.
The press release from Dow Jones read:
News Corp Sells Dow Jones Local Media Group
News Corp announced today that it has sold the Dow Jones Local Media Group, which operates 33 publications, including 8 daily and 15 weekly newspapers, to an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC.
The Dow Jones Local Media Group daily newspaper franchises include the Times Herald-Record (Middletown, N.Y.); Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, Mass.); The Record (Stockton, Calif.); The Standard-Times (New Bedford, Mass.); The Pocono Record (Stroudsburg, Penn.); The Herald (Portsmouth, N.H.); The Mail Tribune (Medford, Ore.), and The Daily Tidings (Ashland, Ore.). In addition to daily and weekly newspapers, the Dow Jones Local Media Group operates other print and online community media, including web sites, magazines as well as news and advertising niche publications.
The Dow Jones Local Media Group operations will be managed by GateHouse Media, one of the largest publishers of locally based print and online media in the United States with a portfolio of products that includes over 400 community publications and approximately 350 related websites.
Waller Capital Partners, a leading independent investment bank focused on the telecommunications, media and technology sectors, advised Dow Jones on the sale of the Local Media Group.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Below is the Gatehouse Media memo to employees:
TO: GateHouse Media Employees
FROM: Mike Reed, CEO
DATE: September 3, 2013
Good Afternoon,
News Corp announced today that it has sold its Dow Jones Local Media Group. The purchase was made by an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Fortress is also the majority owner of GateHouse Media and has engaged GateHouse Media to provide management services for the properties./CONTINUES
Beginning today, GateHouse Media will manage 33 Local Media Group (LMG) publications, including 8 daily newspapers and 15 weekly newspapers in 7 states. The daily newspaper franchises included in the sale are Ashland Daily Tidings in Oregon; Cape Cod Times of Barnstable, MA; Mail Tribune of Oregon; Pocono Record of Stroudsburg, PA; The Portsmouth Herald of Portsmouth, NH;
The Record of Stockton, CA; The Standard-Times of New Bedford, MA; and Times Herald-Record of Middletown, NY.
Coinciding with today’s announcement, GateHouse Media will have a senior executive at each LMG daily newspaper office either today or tomorrow, as we thought it would be timely to have some of our senior staff members visit the properties and meet employees.
We are pleased to announce that Bernie Szachara has been named General Manager of LMG, and will report to Kirk Davis, President and Chief Operating Officer of GateHouse Media. Bernie is an accomplished media executive who spent the bulk of the past 10+ years working in information technology, production, digital product development, strategy, and revenue diversification.
Specifically, Bernie’s most recent work involved independently consulting for FTI Consulting, a business advisory firm, and more importantly, serving as Executive Vice- President/Strategic Initiatives, Operations and IT for The Denver Post. Prior to Denver, Bernie spent 20 years with Gannett in senior operations and IT roles. He received his BS in Production Management from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and his MBA in Business/Commerce from RIT as well.
We look forward to working closely with LMG’s publishers and sharing ideas across both companies. The properties that comprise LMG are highly respected. Moreover, the management teams from both companies share a common belief that the future for local media holds much promise.
Thank you.
Read the Cape Cod Times story about it's sale here.
http://www.capecodtoday.com/article/2013/09/04/21499-cape-cod-times-sold-local-weekly-publisher
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