Acquisitions
Tatiana and Matthew Prince have agreed to acquire the Park Record, the newspaper of record for Park City and Summit County, Utah. The Park Record has been continuously published since 1880, covering the news and happenings of the Wasatch Back. The Princes are acquiring the Park Record from Swift Communications, a subsidiary of West Virginia-based Ogden Newspapers.
Kansas Newspapers has sold the daily Parsons (Kansas) Sun and daily Chanute (Kansas) Tribune to Scott Wesner and Scott Wood. Wood and Wesner, high school classmates who both have extensive newspaper experience, have been steadily acquiring community newspapers in recent years. The Parsons and Chanute newspapers are a strategic add-on for the Wesner and Wood duo, who also own the nearby Independence (Kansas) Reporter.
The sale of eight radio stations to Shaw Local Radio was completed last month, bringing the bundle of stations under the umbrella of the Northern Illinois newspaper group, Shaw Media. Shaw Local Radio’s acquisition involves WALSFM in Oglesby; WIVQ in Spring Valley; WSTQ-FM, WSPL-AM and WYYS-FM in Streator; WGLC in Mendota, WBZG in Peru; and W253BX in Streator. Shaw Media, which operates daily newspapers in Crystal Lake, Joliet, Ottawa, La Salle, Dekalb, Dixon and Sterling, Illinois, purchased the stations from the family-owned Studstill Media of Peru.
Merle and Mary Baranczyk, owners of Arkansas Valley Publishing
Co., and Jim O’rourke, CEO of
O’rourke Media Group, announced the sale of Arkansas Valley Publishing to O’rourke Media Group. The purchase of Arkansas Valley Publishing includes five newspapers – The Mountain Mail and Mountain Guide in Salida; Chaffee County Times, Buena Vista; Herald Democrat, Leadville; and
The Park County Republican and Fairplay Flume.
Georges Media Group, locally owned by John and Dathel Georges, and parent company of The Times-picayune | NOLA.COM, The Advocate, The Acadiana Advocate and Gambit, has acquired the iconic Arthur Hardy’s Mardi Gras Guide, which will expand its already extensive Mardi Gras coverage. For more than 45 years, Arthur Hardy has been a singular authority on everything Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
The Batavia (New York) Daily News and its sister publication, the Livingston County News, have been purchased by the Sample News Group. The Sample News Group is the parent company of Oswego County Media Group. It also publishes The Palladium-times,
The Valley News, The Oswego County Advertiser and online at Oswegocountynewsnow.com.
The company purchased four publications in total from Johnson Newspaper Corporation, based in Watertown. The deal also includes the Oswego County News and the Oswego Shopper.
Reuters reports: “Digital media conglomerate Starboard … has bought Parler for an undisclosed sum and will temporarily shut down the social media app popular with U.S. conservatives to give itself time to roll out a revamped version of the platform.”