Fortress Investment Group will buy Dow Jones’ Local Media Group, the company announced Tuesday afternoon. The group’s 8 daily and 15 weekly newspapers “were not strategically consistent with the emerging portfolio” of News Corp., chief executive Robert Thomson said in a statement. GateHouse Media will manage the papers, the company said.
Dow Jones put the group on sale in April of this year.
The Local Media Group owns newspapers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, California and Oregon. Some of its titles are the Cape Cod Times, The Pocono Record of Stroudsburg, Pa., and The (Medford, Ore.) Mail Tribune.
Here’s the full release:
NEW YORK – September 3, 2013 – News Corp (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; Temp. ASX tickers: NNC, NNCLV) 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. “These newspapers share a strong tradition of service in their communities and a highly talented staff,” said Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp. “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.” 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.
