Gannett, Gatehouse talking merger

They say they're now at 200,000.

Boston Globe Reaches A Long-Sought Goal: 200,000 Digital Subscribers

On profitability, who knows. John Henry is trying to bone the union — they refuse to include a clause in the new contract that would keep the contract intact after a sale — and possibly offload the paper to GateHouse, which would make sense based on the contract wrangling. That's after he made $80 million selling the old Globe property, which he bought, along with some Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, for $70 million.

 

The Globe's push for more digital subs is smart, because I imagine they've ensnared more people like me - New England dude wanting to keep up with news back home. In the past year, they started up Rhode Map, a daily email with Rhode Island-focused stories, and they basically had their pick of former Projo award winners to staff it, given the deep cuts Gatehouse and Belo made over the past decade. I doubt it completely staves off the market bottoming out, but having been inside the Gatehouse beast, it is at least a plan besides "cut to the bone and pray some reversal in the business happens."

 

Also, the retention rate can't be great. $1 for four weeks to sign up, and then it goes up — a lot. Even if they keep just 10 percent of the recent subscribers, they're still over 150,000 though.

 

I am very interested to see how far the Globe takes the Rhode Map. Are they going to try to compete editorially with the Providence Journal? And if the Rhode Map does become profitable will they try the same thing in the rest of New England?

 

I think at this point, the Projo is more like a distressed asset. Like in a way, it is better to be the Globe, and going from 0 to 3 reporters for RI coverage, than the Journal, which (probably) has around 5 to 10 reporters out there, but that's a fraction from X years ago.

 

I wonder how long it will take Gannett to turn the Projo from a distressed to a dead asset.

 

Please tell me they’re not seriously considering selling the Globe to Gannett/Gatehouse. That’s a sick joke.

 

That’s what I’ve been hearing. I will never be happier to be wrong. Lancey is the person here who knows the financials. Perhaps GH can’t finance it. I don’t know.

 

I think they've been focused more on bleeding the smaller dailies in the area first, but yeah, it sucks. Like I don't relish what's happening - I have two buddies who still work there. But the financials in this thread are truly dire, and that was before pandemic.

 

I don't think Gatehouse/Gannett could finance the Globe. But I could see DFM buying the paper. The antitrust issues would have to be finessed since DFM owns the Boston Herald but I think that could be successfully pulled off.

 

Please no. My other childhood paper (the Cape Cod Times) is already feeling the Gatehouse/Gannett squeeze; I can't stomach the Globe getting the same death sentence.

 

The bloodbath begins.