NYT reportedly sells off regional partners

From Romenesko: Halifax Media is buying the NY Times Regional Media Group. Sale wasn’t supposed to be announced today … but this web page was posted today by accident showing all of the RMG papers being owned by Halifax. Oops.

http://jimromenesko.com/2011/12/19/nyt-sells-regional-papers-to-halifax-media/

 

There are a bunch of papers in Florida freaking out right now...

 

Any one know what other properties Halifax owns? As a former NYTRNGer, I still know some folks at a few of these papers.

 

I have a friend who used to work in Tuscaloosa and one of the things these places would boast about is that their staff has the same benefits and stock plan as NYT employees.

I guarantee you that won't be the case anymore.

 

Halifax has Daytona Beach, Tuscaloosa, Petaluma (Calif.), couple other papers, I think.

NYT business story just moved and has more details. Also says the sale is still pending.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/times-said-to-sell-regional-newspapers/

 

Word is, this is happening. All that's left are the details.

 

Anyone know anything about Halifax besides what papers it owns? This makes them a huge player in the Florida newspaper market at least, but I don't really know anything about their track record, ownership (public/private), etc.

 

Story makes it sound like they're dropping dead weight, but I'd always heard T'News was quite the little cash cow.

 

I'd be surprised if more than one of the Florida's 10 biggest papers was NYTRNG. I'm guessing Sarasota is the biggest of the group.

 

So HUGE was a little much. Still, gives them a lot of influence for coverage especially in the central part of the state, and desk consolidation would almost seem inevitable. And that's in addition to any consolidation that's already happened in Ocala/Gainesville.

 

As well they fucking should be. This is an unmitigated disaster for anyone working for any of these papers. Make no mistake, Halifax is owned by the absolute worst of the worst, and nothing good will come of this.

And from what I gather, things are about to go from bad to worse in Daytona.

 

I used to work for an NYT Regional paper. Salary was good. Bennies were silly.