Knight-Ridder Papers Up For Sale p.12

By: Editorial Staff FOR FIVE FINANCIALLY under-performing Knight-Ridder newspapers, the other shoe just dropped from the chain's recent acquisition of four big papers from the Walt
Disney Co.
Knight-Ridder announced it is putting up for sale the 110,000-circulation Press-Telegram in Long Beach, Calif.; the 67,000-circulation Post-Tribune in Gary, Ind.; and three Southern papers that will be sold as a package: the 17,000-circulation Boca Raton (Fla.) News; the 8,400-circulation Union-Recorder in Milledgeville, Ga.; and the three-day-a-week, 6,000-circulation Newberry (S.C.) Observer
Having just paid $1.65 billion for the Kansas City Star, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and two smaller papers ? and taken on nearly $1 billion in debt to swing the deal ? Knight-Ridder says it is taking a hard look at all its properties.
Long Beach, Gary, Boca, Milledgeville and Newberry are all good companies, but they are not, at present, performing according to the profit standards we have set for our paper, chairman and chief executive officer P. Anthony Ridder said.
As much as we would like to keep everything, the wiser course is to be selective, he said.
?E&P Web Site: http://www.mediainfo.com
?copyright: Editor & Publisher June 28, 1997