Boston Herald Has New High Bidder

BOSTON, MA — There may yet be a future for the Boston Herald that does not involve GateHouse Media. Revolution Capital Group (which formerly owned the Tampa Tribune) on Monday offered $5.75 million, topping the GateHouse Media bid of $4.5 million, the Boston Herald reports.

Last month the owner of the Herald pulled staff into the newsroom to announce that the old paper had declared bankruptcy and was selling to GateHouse Media, a company that already owned upwards of 100 local newspapers in the Boston area. There were tears in the newsroom as top staff outlined the number of jobs that would be lost in the process and that those who wanted to stay on would need to reapply for their jobs.

But when a business declares bankruptcy the law requires the business be open to bidding, as Patch previously reported. Anything could happen, cautioned media guru Dan Kennedy. And now, a second bidder has made an entrance.

Revolution Capital Group in Tampa, a company that once offered to buy the Herald in 2013, filed its bid Jan. 1 with the federal bankruptcy court in Delaware. Parts of Revolution's bid add up to more than the $5 million offer that newspaper giant GateHouse Media made last month, the Herald reported.

This bid includes $3 million cash, an agreement to pay out $750,000 in time off for employees who join the company, and $2 million in severance, which the GateHouse deal did not include.

The new company said it expected to keep the same number of employees that GateHouse had planned to keep - 175 of the some 240.

The Boston Herald has been a staple since 1846 when it was a single two-sided sheet of news published by a group of Boston printers. It grew to a print circulation of 64,500, added an online component, and a radio station. Circulation has been dwindling in recent years.

GateHouse Media is one of the largest publishers of local media in the country but has been criticized in recent years for downsizing so many of its publications. It also has gone through a number of layoffs in the past few years and consolidated reporter and editor duties. Many local GateHouse weeklies now employ essentially one reporter who also acts as an editor for the community.

Read the full Boston Herald article on the bid.

Previously on Patch:

Boston Herald To Sell To GateHouse Media For $4.5 Million

Photo by Bob Holmes, Patch

Full Disclosure: Reporter Jenna Fisher previously worked for GateHouse Media.