Purcell To Buy Boston Herald p. 15

By: George Garneau

BOSTON HERALD PUBLISHER Patrick Purcell, grabbing "the opportunity of a lifetime," has agreed to buy the tabloid competitor to the Boston Globe from News Corp. Ltd., headed by Rupert Murdoch.
Terms were not disclosed. Bank of Boston provided some financing, Murdoch none, Purcell said, adding that he had no partners.
The deal, scheduled to close Feb. 14, does not include the paper's Harrison Avenue property, which will be leased.
The transaction, which news reports valued at $10 million to $20 million, allows Murdoch to acquire WFXT, Boston's Channel 25, a key distribution outlet for his Fox Television network.
Murdoch was forced to sell the station in 1989 to comply with Federal Communications Commission regulations barring one company from owning a daily newspaper and TV station in the same market.
The Australian-born, naturalized U.S. citizen said he had "very mixed emotions" about selling the Herald, a training ground for News Corp. executives.
The Herald reported that Murdoch and Purcell, who are friends, struck a handshake deal Jan. 18 in Los Angeles.
The Herald moves from chain to independent ownership just a year after its competition, the Globe, was acquired by giant New York Times Co.
Purcell said he will step down as president and CEO of News Corp.'s U.S. subsidiary, News America Publishing Inc., and as publisher of its New York Post.
Murdoch acquired the Post last year from bankruptcy after the FCC waived the cross-ownership rule so he could own the money-losing New York tabloid and New York station WYNY-TV.
Murdoch has said he expects the Post to lose $5 million to $10 million a year.
Purcell said the Herald is "in the black" but gave no details. The tabloid sells 220,000 papers daily, 214,000 Sunday, compared with the broadsheet Globe, which sells 508,000 daily, 814,000 Sunday. The Herald gets a fraction of the advertising in the market.
"We know Boston needs and can support two daily newspapers," Purcell said at a news conference Feb. 4.
He acknowledged that without News Corp.'s deep pockets, "we're going to have to make it on our own."
In typical tabloid style, the Herald devoted its entire front page and five inside pages to the story.
Three days after the announcement, Murdoch named former News America chief executive and former News Corp. director Martin Singerman, 67, to replace Purcell at the Post.
Singerman told the New York Times that the Post plans to invest millions of dollars in color press equipment, and probably a new production plant, and to move from its headquarters on South Street to midtown Manhattan.
Purcell, 46, a native New Yorker who started out after college in 1969 as an office boy at the New York Daily News, has been publisher of the Herald since 1984, two years after Murdoch bought it for $1 million from Hearst Corp.
He said subsidies from its parent company gradually declined and "we've basically been standing on our own for the last couple of years."
Speculation about the paper's fate began in September, when Murdoch acquired an option to buy 51% of WFXT, and grew when Fox won the rights to broadcast National Football League games.
The paper will remain in its building under lease, an arrangement that Purcell said made the deal affordable.
Purcell said significant "efficiencies" will be required at the paper and did not rule out layoffs. One of the first hurdles is a new contract with the Newspaper Guild local.
He said he plans to automate production process and re-examine the Sunday paper, which has a lower circulation than the weekday edition.
Purcell admitted to strong emotional ties to the paper and Boston, where he is vice president of the Chamber of Commerce and active in community affairs. He is married and has four children; the eldest, Kathleen, works in the Herald's classified department.
"There are some risks and some hard work that's going to have to be done to make it work," he told the paper, "but everything is in place to enable us to make it work."
?( Patric Purcell) [Photo]
?( Martin Singerman) [Photo]

DATE: Sat 26-Feb-1994
PUBLICATION: Editor & Publisher
CATEGORY: Correction
SUBJECT: Boston Herald
AUTHOR: George Garneau
LOCATION: Page 10

QUICK WORDS:

correction patrick purcell boston herald tabloid acquisiton martin singerman sale rupert murdoc news corp ltd. transaction

FULL TEXT:

Correction p.

THE INCORRECT CIRCULATION of the Boston Herald was published in a story (E&P, Feb. 12, p. 15).