Manhattan Media, which is owned by Isis Venture Partners, has sold its Manhattan-based chain of weekly newspapers, including Our Town, Chelsea Clinton News, West Side Spirit, the Westsider and Our Town Downtown.
The buyer is Straus News, headed by President Jeanne Straus, a publisher of nine weekly papers on the New York-Pennsylvania-New Jersey borders.
Terms could not be learned.
Isis, headed by Richard Burns and his partner James Lyle, has owned the papers since 2001 when it took them over from News Communications, headed by Jimmy Finkelstein and Wilbur Ross.
Although daily newspapers have been hit hard by the recession and the migration of classified ads to digital, Straus said it is a different picture for community weeklies.
“We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think it had a great future,” she said. “Community newspapers continue to do well, because it is news that people care about.”
Burns insists he got a positive return on his investment.
“The papers have been consistently profitable for the past decade,” he said. “The revenue has been stable during a turbulent media period.”
Burns and Lyle are British executives who picked Isis as the name of their investment company because it is the name of the Oxford University magazine, where Burns was editor.
In contrast, Straus’s ties to the New York City media scene are deep.
Her grandfather, Nathan Straus, acquired the WMCA-570AM radio station in 1943. Jeanne’s father, Peter Straus and his wife, Ellen Sulzberger Straus. who has ties to the Sulzberger clan that controls the New York Times Co., turned WMCA into a Top 40 rock ‘n’ roll station built around “the Good Guys.”
Its popular DJs helped catapult the station into one of the top AM spots on the dial in the 1960s when AM was still king.
Peter Straus was also active on the political front, playing a role in Bobby Kennedy’s campaign for the Senate. He later served as a director of the Voice of America radio stations under Jimmy Carter.
In 1986, the Straus family sold the station and purchased its first newspaper, the Warwick Advertiser, a weekly in New York’s northern suburbs, which remains the flagship of the chain.
Its holdings include one magazine, Dirt, covering the local “green scene.”
While Isis is selling off its Manhattan titles, it is keeping its other media properties, including Dan’s Papers in the Hamptons as well as Avenue magazine, New York Family, New York Baby Show, and City & State.
Tom Allon, the longtime publisher of the Manhattan Newspaper Group and a declared Republican candidate for City Hall, will remain president of Manhattan Media.
British blitz
As jarring as Time Inc.’s cutbacks were at its New York headquarters this week, the British wing of the company, IPC Media faced steeper cuts.
Sylvia Auton, the British executive in charge of the London subsidiary, told staffers via memo on Wednesday that 8 percent of the workforce, amounting to 150 people, were being slashed. IPC publishes magazines such as the British version of Marie Claire and NOW, the UK version of People
Time CEO Laura Lang told staffers that just over 6 percent of its worldwide staff was facing cuts, which is believed to total around 500. Just under half of the cuts were centered in New York.
The Newspaper Guild said that Time Inc. indicated it would offer buyouts to 20 Guild-covered employees. More names began to trickle out yeterday.
Walter Updegrave, 60, a senior editor with 26 years at Time Inc., said he was taking a buyout package. He estimated he has written more than 1,000 “Ask the expert” columns on financial planning. “I had a choice, and figured I’d take the chance to look into other opportunities.” While he did a good job of following his own advice for financial planning, he doesn’ t plan to retire. “I’m open to other things,” he said.
So far, he’s the only departure on the Money staff. Time seeks six Guild-covered employees and six non-Guuild edit people to volunteer or face cuts .
Fortune was spared, apparently helped by the departure of longtime deputy editor Hank Gilman, who quietly retired at the end of 2012. Sports Illustrated, which had its downsizing in June, when it had to cut about 15 jobs and trim $3million in costs, lost a small number.
Edit for W
Only days after Condé Nast feted Lucy Kriz, the publisher of W at its annual publishers pow wow with a second-place award, the company’s Fairchild division said yesterday that the oversized fashion glossy was dropping two issues and would go from monthly to 10 times a year.
Editor Stefano Tonchi said that the money saved by skipping issues will be used to help launch a redesigned website, wmagazine.com, in May.
The magazine also recently redesigned its iPad application.