Cox Media Sells-Off Two More Newspapers

One of the nation’s busiest acquirers of newspapers and online media has agreed to buy The Palm Beach Post and Palm Beach Daily News in a deal announced Wednesday at $49.25 million.

Executives at New York-based New Media Investment Group Inc. said the sister papers will join a growing GateHouse Media stable of more than 140 daily newspapers. That represents more than 1 in 10 in the country.

The papers and associated websites have been owned since 1969 by Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises. The sale is expected to be completed by May.

“We see Palm Beach as another attractive and growing market that fits in well with our current Florida footprint,” said Michael E. Reed, New Media’s president and CEO. He called the papers “the primary source of news in their respective communities for over 100 years” and said they have “created high digital engagement that we are excited to work to build upon.”

Kim Guthrie

“We are so grateful to the talented team in Palm Beach for their relentless execution of quality journalism and service to the community,” said Kim Guthrie, president of Cox Media Group. “When selecting a buyer for both papers, we sought a company that would build on their role as trusted local brands. We know The Post will make GateHouse proud.”

GateHouse has had “good success, better than most” in profitability, and has come with “a pretty well-earned reputation for running lean,” said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst for the nonprofit Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg.

Staff reductions have followed a number of acquisitions, he noted. GateHouse strives for efficiency by centralizing certain functions such as the layout of pages, he said. At the same time, the company has been buying larger papers lately and in a recent earnings call company officials “were talking about doing more investigative reporting and projects,” Edmonds said.

Cox announced its Palm Beach and Austin papers were for sale last fall. Privately held Cox will continue to operate newspaper businesses in Atlanta and Ohio, markets where it also owns radio and TV stations.