GateHouse Media Inc. CEO Kirk Davis says the company's shuttering of 10 weeklies in Eastern Massachusetts was necessary to shore up its stronger area publications.
"There's no nobility in trying to cover every town in Eastern Massachusetts even though that's where the dream started 20 years ago," Davis says. "It's most important to recognize where the strongest franchises run the risk of becoming weaker if your idea is just to become bigger instead of better."The closings, first reported by veteran Boston media critic Dan Kennedy on his blog on Monday, will likely see 10 weeklies closing out of nearly 100 papers GateHouse owns in the area. Sean Burke, the company's New England president and group publisher, isn't yet ready to name which papers exactly would close.
"I'd rather not disclose that at the moment because I'm still in the process of alerting our readers and advertisers," Burke says, noting that no layoffs will be involved in the closings.
Davis says the company's history in Massachusetts was built around a mapping strategy in which covering a broad swath of the area's geography was paramount. Some coverage areas always had much higher retail sales opportunities than others, "but we still wanted to be able to offer that market in combination buys," he says.
Now, he notes, "business conditions have become more challenging and it's more important to be selective about where you're putting the greatest amount of resources. We're going to shift resources to the highest potential markets that are most desirable to our advertisers."GateHouse filed for bankruptcy in September. The company has signaled its intention to emerge from that protection within the year through assistance from Fortress Investment Group, an equity investor in the company.
Davis says there will be no change to its WickedLocal hyperlocal sites in the area, which continue to compete with a heavy Patch presence.
