Cox Enterprises to sell its newspapers in Texas, Colorado and North Carolina, including weeklies

Cox Enterprises Inc. said yesterday that it will sell its most of its newspapers -- those in Texas, North Carolina and Colorado, most of which are small dailies and community weeklies that serve many rural residents.

Mike Laosa, publisher of the Austin American-Statesman, at 162,000 circulation the largest paper up for bids, "told several hundred employees at a somber, hourlong newsroom meeting Wednesday afternoon [that] the sale of the various properties could occur as a package deal, or in any number of possible permutations," reports the Statesman's Ben Wear. "However, a newspaper industry analyst said the market for newspapers is poor."

"This is a terrible time to be trying to sell a newspaper," John Morton of Silver Spring, Md., told the Austin paper. "The sales value of newspapers has probably dropped in half in the last five years. ... There are a lot of newspapers that are up for sale and there are no takers or no one willing to pay what the sellers want." Morton Research focuses on metro dailies; the market for community papers is probably better, though News Corp. recently decided to keep its Ottaway Newspapers subsidiary, apparently because of poor market conditions.

The other Cox dailies in Texas are the Waco Tribune-Herald, circ. 36,785; the Longview News-Journal, 26,979; The Lufkin Daily News, 12,542; The Daily Sentinel of Nacogdoches, 7,621; and the Marshall News Messenger, 6,687. Those in North Carolina are The Daily Reflector of Greeneville, 21, 254; the Rocky Mount Telegram, 13,894; and The Daily Advance of Elizabeth City, 10,362. Also on the block is The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, Colo., 30,616.

Cox will keep its papers in Ohio, where the company began and still owns the Dayton Daily News; the Palm Beach area of Florida; and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in its headquarters city. In Grand Junction, Publisher Alex Taylor said in a personal notice to readers, "This is a difficult announcement and a dramatic change of course for The Daily Sentinel. ... I love Grand Junction. The chairman and CEO of Cox, Jim Kennedy, who was also a publisher here, loves Grand Junction. It gives neither of us, nor any of the senior executives at Cox, any pleasure to sell this paper. But the world is changing dramatically — more so now than most can recall. The evolution of Cox has produced a company that is increasingly invested in other businesses. This announcement is a part of that evolution." The company said in a news release, "Approximately 80 percent of Cox Enterprises’ revenues now come from sources other than its traditional advertising-supported media companies (newspapers, television and radio)," such as cable TV, Cox Auto Trader and direct mail -- but it is selling its Valpak direct-mail firm.

Several other Cox dailies are are affiliated with weekly papers; the largest one for sale is the Spanish-language ahora si!, circulation 30,307, in Austin. It is one of seven Cox weeklies in the Austin area. In North Carolina, Cox weeklies are The Enterprise of Williamston, circ. 5,100; The Chowan Herald of Edenton, 5,000; the Beaufort Clyde-News of Bellhaven, 4,400; the Bertie Ledger-Advance of Windsor, 4,200; The Standard Laconic of Snow Hill, 3,100; The Farmville Enterprise, 2,500; The Times-Leader of Grifton, 2,100; the Perquimans Weekly of Hertford, 2,000; and The Weekly Herald of Williamston, 931. (Source: Editor & Publisher International Yearbook; for the company's list and links, click here.)