Press Herald owner buys Texas papers
The owner and CEO of MaineToday Media, publisher of the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal, Morning Sentinel and a few other papers and websites in Maine, has bought two small business papers in Texas.
Richard Connor and his wife, Deborah, recently formed a new company called DRC Media LLC and bought the Fort Worth Business Press for the third time, as well as its sister paper, the Collins County Business Press, plus websites and some related ancillary publications, from Ohio Community Media.
Connor is also president of the Wilkes-Barre Publishing Co. in Pennsylvania, and editor and publisher of The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre.
Without disclosing the terms of the sale, Connor says he purchased his old weekly paper because it's what he does for work. The circulation of the Business Press is a little under 9,000, he says.
"I'm in the newspaper business," Connor says. "I buy newspapers, and this one was for sale. I owned it twice before, it's a good market, I understand it. This is a market I know."
Connor first bought the Business Press in 1998 when he founded a national newspaper company, Lionheart Newspapers, according to the Fort Worth Business Press. He then bought the Business Press again in 2001 from his Lionheart partners, and sold it in 2007 to Brown Publishing Co., based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Brown Publishing filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May, after which its lenders formed Ohio Community Media and bought most of its assets for about $21.8 million, according to published reports.
Deborah Connor, who is from Fort Worth, will be more involved in overseeing the Texas papers, Richard Connor says. Deborah's family still lives there, and Connor, who is from Bangor, says they both have maintained strong ties to the community.
Bob Francis, editor of the Fort Worth Business Press, says he believes the new ownership will help the paper. "[Richard's] been in business here for a long time," Francis says. "He knows a lot of people in town."
The paper, which has between 15 and 20 employees, has struggled in the recession, Francis says. But, he adds, Connor "knows what he's doing... When he bought it the previous time, it was in worse shape than he thought it was, and then he turned a profit."
Connor, as the lead investor in MaineToday Media, bought the Blethen Maine Newspapers from The Seattle Times Co. in 2009, when the company was losing money and had slashed coverage, closed bureaus and cut back staff. Since Connor purchased the papers, he has sold the downtown news building for $6.2 million, and offered buyouts to more than 40 employees and laid off 17 others, trimming the staff down to about 400 from 560 before the sale.
The papers are now making a profit, Connor says. "We've been profitable since the very first month we bought the paper."
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