Washington City Paper is under new ownership, after Nashville-based SouthComm Inc. announced it was buying the alt-weekly and its sister publication, Creative Loafing Atlanta, from Atalaya Capital Management.
City Paper went on the sale block in March after Atalaya, a New York-based private-equity fund, decided to get out of the weekly newspaper business. Atalaya purchased City Paper in 2009 when it bought the bankrupt Creative Loafing Inc., an acquisition that also included the Chicago Reader and several Creative Loafing papers. (Disclosure: I have been a City Paper contributor since April 2010.)
Incorporated in 2007, SouthComm owns a growing chain of newspapers and magazines, including alt-weeklies in Nashville, Louisville, Ky., Cincinnati, Charlotte and Tampa. The Charlotte and Tampa papers, also titled Creative Loafing, were purchased from Atalaya last October.
Atalaya announced the sale in March shortly after cutting the salaries of the staffs of City Paper, the Reader and Creative Loafing Atlanta. The Reader was sold first, to the Chicago Sun-Times, a move that severed it financially from the City Paper for the first time in about 30 years.
The City Paper has also been operating with something of a skeleton crew lately, including just two full-time staff writers with the recent departure of Lydia DePillis, who wrote the Housing Complex column for the last two years. DePillis is going to The New Republic, as is former editor Michael Schaffer. Mike Madden took over at the top masthead, with Jonathan L. Fischer taking Madden’s old spot as managing editor, leaving the City Paper without an arts editor.
In a press release, SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell said he was eager to take over City Paper and Creative Loafing Atlanta.
“Washington City Paper and Creative Loafing are two of the leading alt-weeklies in the country in two of the most influential cities in the world,” he said.”I look forward to working with the staff in both markets to build on their legacy of strong news reporting and in-depth coverage of dining, music, arts, and culture.”
The full announcement of the sale is below:
NASHVILLE, TENN. (July 3, 2012) – SouthComm, Inc., announced that it has acquired the assets of Washington City Paper and Creative Loafing Atlanta from Creative Loafing, Inc. Last fall, SouthComm acquired Creative Loafing papers in Tampa and Charlotte from the same company.
“I am excited to welcome these two excellent papers to SouthComm,” said SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell. “Washington City Paper and Creative Loafing are two of the leading alt-weeklies in the country in two of the most influential cities in the world. I look forward to working with the staff in both markets to build on their legacy of strong news reporting and in-depth coverage of dining, music, arts, and culture.”
“At SouthComm, we know that readers look to our publications for information about what’s going on in their city in both our print publications and on our digital platforms. Advertisers look to us to connect them to their clients and potential clients in print, online and in person. In cities across the Southeast and Midwest we are developing a model that fills the needs of both readers and advertisers by building around our weeklies a suite of niche publications and products. Atlanta and DC are larger cities than some of our other markets, but we think the same principles still apply. We believe relationships with readers and advertisers matter and we will try to uphold and build on the relationships these two papers have established over the years in Atlanta and D.C.,” explained Ferrell.
About SouthComm Inc.
SouthComm was formed in late 2007 to operate regional niche publications. The Nashville-based company now owns more than 20 titles targeting general news, alternative, business, society and female audiences in Nashville, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Louisville, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Charlotte and Tampa as well the regional Medical News chain of papers. The company is the nation’s second largest publisher of alternative weeklies. The company also owns Target Marketing and SouthComm Publishing, custom publishing companies serving chambers of commerce and other associations around the country. For more information, visit southcomm.com.
