ePublishing Buys 1Up! Software
ePublishing, a provider of software and services for publishers and media companies, has acquired 1Up! Software, a content management system for community publishers and organizations. Grimes, McGovern & Associates represented 1Up! Software in the sale of its business to ePublishing, which is headquartered in Chicago. ePublishing offers a suite of software and services that bring together online and print, editorial management, audience data, marketing and sales, says the company.
Gannett Selling 20 Papers to CherryRoad Media
CherryRoad Media has a deal to acquire 20 papers from Gannett. The papers, which include five dailies, are published in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri. New Mexico-based Dirks, Van Essen & April represented Gannett in the transaction. Terms were not disclosed.
This marks the largest acquisition to date for CherryRoad Media, which entered the newspaper industry in late 2020 with the purchase of the weekly Cook County News-Herald (Minnesota). It has since acquired four titles in Arkansas, one in Alabama, and started the Rainy Lake Gazette in International Falls, Minnesota.
CherryRoad Media is a subsidiary of CherryRoad Technologies, a New Jersey-based tech company that has been in business since 1983. CEO Jeremy Gulban says the company decided late last year to look at the local newspaper industry because they felt there was a need for an infusion of tech from a supportive side as opposed to a competitive side.
The papers acquired: Pratt Tribune, Kiowa County Signal, Hiawatha Penny Press, Butler County Times-Gazette, McPherson Sentinel, Leavenworth Times, Wellington Daily News, Dodge City Daily Globe, Newton Kansan, Garden City Telegram, St. John News, Hays Daily News, Ottawa Herald (all in Kansas), Nebraska City News Press, Syracuse Journal-Democrat (both in Nebraska), Hamburg Reporter (Iowa), Independence Examiner, Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune, Boonville Daily News and Linn County Leader (all four in Missouri).
Gannett Aims to Refinance Debt
Gannett announced today that it’s seeking to opportunistically refinance its existing term loan under its senior secured credit facilities. The company intends to issue senior secured notes to refinance a portion of the term loan and refinance the remainder of the existing term loan with a new senior secured term loan, said Gannett.
The new senior secured term loan would be in a principal amount up to $550 million. Gannett Holdings, a Delaware limited liability company and a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, would be the borrower under the credit agreement, and lenders are anticipated to include funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Capital Management. Upon closing, the net proceeds of the loans will be used to refinance a portion of the company’s existing term loan.
IAC May Buy Meredith
Barry Diller’s IAC is in negotiations to buy Iowa-based Meredith, the publisher of People, Real Simple and other titles, says The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation. The deal, which may be valued north of $2.5 billion, would deepen New York-based IAC’s bench of online publications, which include Brides and TripSavvy, says WSJ.
Pew Looks at News Consumption Across Social Media in 2021
A little under half (48%) of U.S. adults say they get news from social media “often” or “sometimes,” a 5 percentage point decline compared with 2020, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted July 26 to Aug. 8, 2021. When it comes to where Americans regularly get news on social media, Facebook outpaces all other social media sites, says Pew.
In a separate question asking users of 10 social media sites whether they regularly get news there, about a third of U.S. adults (31%) say they get news regularly on Facebook, while about one-in-five Americans (22%) say they regularly get news on YouTube. Twitter and Instagram are regular news sources for 13% and 11% of Americans, respectively.
Fewer than one-in-ten Americans say they regularly get news from Reddit (7%), TikTok (6%), LinkedIn (4%), Snapchat (4%), WhatsApp (3%) and Twitch (1%). The percentage of Americans who get news regularly from these sites has remained largely unchanged since 2020, though the share who regularly get news on Facebook has declined slightly (36% in 2020 vs. 31% in 2021).
O’Rourke Media Launches QueenCreekSunTimes.com
O’Rourke Media has launched QueenCreekSunTimes.com, a new source for local news and community information in Queen Creek, Arizona. QueenCreekSunTimes will join Village Media’s Publisher Services Program, which will provide the tech powering the new website, back-office services and audience growth services, according to a news release from O’Rourke. Village Media’s Villager platform is in use on the endeavor. The Google News Initiative is sponsoring QueenCreekSunTimes into the new program.
O’Rourke Media Group is a family-owned company that was established in 2018. It acquires hyper-local, print, and digital community papers and currently has 22 publications and affiliated websites in five states and an in-house digital marketing agency.
St. Bernards Healthcare buys Jonesboro Sun Building
St. Bernards Healthcare has bought the offices of The Jonesboro Sun (Arkansas), at 518 Carson St., the paper reports. Paxton Media owns the paper. In April, the decision was made to shift the printing of The Sun, Paragould Daily Press, Newport Independent and Times Dispatch to the company’s facility in Paducah, Kentucky, said Publisher Reece B. Terry. “This allowed us to immediately accomplish several of our goals — improve the quality and appearance of our print products and add significantly more color pages,” said Terry. “This move meant we were utilizing less than half the space in The Sun’s present location, so we decided to approach St. Bernards about the possibility of acquiring the property,” said Terry.
South Haven Tribune to be Produced at Hub
Beginning next month, the South Haven Tribune (Michigan) will be produced through Paxton Media Indiana-Michigan group’s regional hub at the Herald-Palladium in St. Joseph where the paper is printed, says the Tribune. “Due to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic we had to make the difficult decision to determine how to publish the South Haven Tribune cost-efficiently while continuing to provide local news coverage in the South Haven area,” said Becky Kark, Tribune editor and general manager. Paxton Media owns the paper.
EDG Lands Newspaper Jobs
Electronic Design Group has landed a number of newspaper upgrade projects recently, the company tells News & Tech. Among them is work at The Gainesville Times (Georgia), retrofitting PLC, DC drives and HMI on two Urbanite presses. EDG is based in New Hamburg, Canada, and specializes in automation, drives and custom hardware design.
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