Coloradoan’s parent company agrees to newspaper mega-merger

NEW YORK  — Gannett Inc. (NYSE: GCI), the parent company of the Fort Collins Coloradoan and Windsor Beacon, has agreed to be acquired by newspaper competitor New Media Investment Group Inc. (NYSE: NEWM) in a deal that would create by far the largest local news conglomerate in the country.

In a joint statement, the two companies said they plan to merge the properties owned by Gannett and GateHouse Media, New Media’s newspaper operating division, under Gannett’s USA Today Network brand.

If the deal is completed, the combined company would operate 265 daily newspapers and thousands of weeklies across the United States and have a print circulation of 8.7 million. The next largest newspaper company is Media News Group/Digital First, which includes the Denver Post, the Boulder Daily Camera, Longmont Times-Call, Loveland Reporter-Herald and other newspapers in Colorado. That group has about 3.2 million in paid circulation, less than half the size of the merged Gannett/Gatehouse company.

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The companies said they intend to find shared cost savings between $275 million to $300 million annually.

The tie-up would connect the Coloradoan and Beacon in the same media chain with GateHouse’s daily papers in La Junta and Pueblo and its weeklies in Fowler and Las Animas across the state.

It’s unclear exactly how the merger would affect the Coloradoan’s operations. Eric Larsen, the Coloradoan’s regional executive editor, told BizWest that staff at the paper is learning about the merger’s details along with the rest of the market and any changes would be speculative until the deal’s closure later this year.

“Until then, it’s business as normal,” he said.