By: E&P Staff While the closing of the Rocky Mountain News made headlines around the globe, a related development was little noticed outside of Colorado: MediaNews Group will soon take complete control of The Daily Camera in Boulder and two other dailies.
E.W. Scripps Co. -- which folded the Rocky and exited the joint operating agreement (JOA) with Denver Post publisher MediaNews -- sold to MediaNews its 50% stake in Prairie Mountain Publishing, the owner of the Daily Camera, The Broomfield Enterprise and the student newspaper, the Colorado Daily.
MediaNews and Scripps had been equal partners in Prairie Mountain for the past three years. The sale to MediaNews is expected to close in a few months.
Scripps CEO Rich Boehne told local media last week that no significant money changed hands in the deal to exit the JOA and the Prairie Mountain partnership.
In a meeting with employees of the newspapers late last week, MediaNews CEO William Dean Singleton said there were no radical changes contemplated at Prairie Mountain. No layoffs are planned as a result of the takeover, Camera Publisher Al Manzi said.
"You put out a pretty darn good-looking newspaper, so I'm not sure you want to screw with it," Singleton told employees, according to an account by Broomfield Enterprise reporter Alicia Wallace.
The Post and the Camera could share coverage, as the Camera had done with the Rocky, Singleton suggested, and there are cross-selling possibilities for advertising.
The Denver Business Journal, in an article by Greg Avery, noted that Prairie Mountain has put up for sale the building that has housed the Daily Camera for more than 100 years. The Journal said Boulder County tax records value the building and land at $6.5 million, "but its market value is expected to be much higher give the potential for its redevelopment." It quoted developers as saying the property could fetch between $12 million and $15 million.
Scripps will get a share of the proceeds from the real estate sale. No high bidder has yet been identified for the property, which has been up for sale since November.
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This story has been corrected. An earlier version stated erroneously that the Rocky Mountain News was the largest-circulation U.S. paper to fold.
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