Jumping on the sell-off bandwagon, the Copley Press Inc., which owns the San Diego Union-Tribune, and a handful of other dailies and weeklies in California, Illinois and Ohio, said Tuesday, Oct. 31, it was weighing options for its Midwest papers, including the possibility of a merger or a sale, according to published reports.
The La Jolla, Calif. company said the decision was a result of industry "contraction" and its own debt and the news comes months after Copley announced plans in June to explore the sale of its three Los Angeles-area newspapers. The company said then it tapped Evercore Partners to help evaluate its options.
As the San Diego Union-Tribune pointed out, the Copley news comes a week after Dow Jones & Co. Inc. announced the sale of six local dailies to Birmingham, Ala.-based Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. for $282.5 million, 11.3 times projected 2006 Ebitda for the titles. Also last week, Rochester, N.Y.-based community newspaper publisher GateHouse Media Inc. went public, raising about $250 million.
The prospective Copley Press auction comes in conjunction with the media world's mega-auction of the moment, that of Tribune Co., which, not in need of any bad news at such a critical time, saw its own Los Angeles Times' daily circulation fall an alarming 8% for the six months ended Sept. 30, while national circulation on the whole fell only 2.8%.—Carolyn Murphy
Go to story from the San Diego Union-Tribune
Go to story from the NYTimes on circulation drop
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