Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 30, 1993 TAG: 9312300059
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ITHACA, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The agreement, reached late Tuesday, takes effect Friday.
It is the first time Park Communications has sold any publication, company spokesman Jack Claiborne said. Roy H. Park, the company's founder who died in October, once boasted, "We don't sell; we only buy."
The transaction would allow Park to "continue to focus resources on larger publications," said Wright M. Thomas, the company's president and chief operating officer.
Park retains 112 publications, including 30 dailies. The Ithaca-based company also owns and operates nine television stations and 22 radio stations. Its operations spread over 21 states, including Virginia, where it also owns WTVR-TV in Richmond.
The 11 dailies being sold have a combined circulation of 37,675, Claiborne said.
Neither the publications' profitability nor founder Park's death had any bearing on the sale, Claiborne said. Negotiations with American Publishing began last summer, he said.
American Publishing, based in West Frankfort, Ill., bought the following dailies: Nebraska City News-Press; Evening Sun, Norwich, N.Y.; Daily Ledger, Broken Arrow, Okla.; Observer News-Enterprise, Newton, N.C.; Daily World, Helena, Ark.; Courier News, Blytheville, Ark.; Wayne Independent, Honesdale, Pa.; Evening Sentinel, Shenandoah, Iowa; Lewisburg Daily Journal, Lewisburg, Pa.; Milton Daily Standard, Milton, Pa.; and News-Gazette, Winchester, Ind.
American Publishing also is buying seven paid weeklies, 13 free-distribution shoppers and two monthlies serving the same communities, as well as Sand Springs, Okla., and Perry, Ga.
The purchase brings American Publishing's holdings to 265 publications in 30 states, including 98 dailies with a combined circulation of 2.1 million.
Roy Park parlayed a food fortune built in the 1940s in tandem with Duncan Hines into an even bigger fortune in communications, starting with his first media purchase in 1962. He concentrated on buying newspapers and broadcast stations in smaller cities, especially in the Northeast and the South.
His company was valued at $429 million this month when terms of his will were revealed.
by CNB