 | |
| Industry | Newspapers andtelevision stations |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1921 |
| Defunct | September 1998 |
| Fate | Broken up and sold in 1998 |
| Successor |
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| Headquarters | Portland, Maine,United States |
Key people | |
| Products | Threedaily newspapers inMaine and seventelevision stations in the easternUnited States |
Number of employees | 1998: 1,400 |
Guy Gannett Communications was a family-owned business consisting of newspapers inMaine and a handful of television stations in the easternUnited States. The company was founded by its namesake, Guy P. Gannett, in 1921, and was managed by a family trust from 1954 to 1998, when it sold most of its properties toThe Seattle Times Company andSinclair Broadcast Group.
William Howard Gannett, ofAugusta, Maine, first publishedComfort magazine in 1888—an eight-page advertisement for apatent medicine—but it was his son, Guy Patterson Gannett, who headed the push into daily journalism. After a stint helping with the magazine after leavingYale University in 1901, the junior Gannett went into local politics. By 1920, he was a prominent citizen in Augusta, Maine. Two daily newspaper owners representing thePortland Herald and thePortland Daily Press approached him and asked him to buy them out. Gannett invested in both companies.[1]
In 1921, he completed his purchase of the two Portland papers, merging them into onePortland Press Herald, and also bought theWaterville Morning Sentinel inWaterville, Maine. In 1925 he added, forUS$550,000, the PortlandEvening Express and Daily Advertiser andPortland Sunday Telegram. Four years later, Guy Gannett Publishing Co. tacked on theKennebec Journal in Augusta.[2]
At first, the company expanded beyond newspapers withWGAN radio (1938) and television (1954) stations in Portland only (WGAN-TV was renamedWGME in 1983). In 1967, Guy Gannett Communications began to buy television properties outside Maine.[2]
On February 1, 1991, succumbing to industry-wide declines in revenues at afternoon newspapers, Guy Gannett Communications closed theEvening Express and merged it with thePortland Press Herald. Daily circulation of theExpress was given at 22,000 to 23,000.[3]
In early 1998, the family trust decided to sell the company, leading to worries among some, such asPress Herald managing editor Curt Hazlett, that the Guy Gannett papers could lose the qualities he associated with family-owned journalism:
This place has been committed to quality, which means we're a little fat on the news side. That's a price this company has been willing to pay because we cover the community pretty well. The question is whether someone coming in from the outside will be willing to do that.[4]
Although they entertained offers fromJournal Register Company andMediaNews Group, which had strong properties in nearbyMassachusetts, Guy Gannett's managers decided to sell their newspapers toThe Seattle Times Company, which had previously operated only within the state ofWashington. Seattle Times, run by the fourth generation of the Blethen family, which had its roots in Maine, won out because of shared values.
"Of all the companies in the newspaper business, The Seattle Times is one most like our company in the sense of independence, of family ownership, and commitment to the community," said Guy Gannett spokesman Tim O'Meara. Frank Blethen, theSeattle Times publisher, agreed: "One of our key phrases is that we make money to print newspapers, not the other way around," he said.[5]
Blethen said he had developed "a real emotional connection" to the Maine papers after making several "family pilgrimages" to the home of his ancestor, Col. Alden Blethen, who had been a schoolteacher and lawyer in Maine before purchasingThe Seattle Press-Times in 1896. TheKennebec Journal,Maine Sunday Telegram,Morning Sentinel andPortland Press Herald, along with associated weeklies, were reorganized asBlethen Maine Newspapers, an independent division of The Seattle Times Company. The price of the deal was not disclosed publicly but was later estimated at $213 million, based on company documents.[6]
A week after the Blethen sale, Guy Gannett unloaded most of its television stations in aUS$310 million deal withSinclair Broadcast Group.[7]
At the time of its sale in 1998, Guy Gannett Communications consisted of threedaily newspapers in Maine, a few related publishing products, and seventelevision stations.[8]
The newspapers and related companies were sold to The Seattle Times Company and reorganized as a subsidiary company, Blethen Maine Newspapers; the newspaper chain would be sold to new owners in 2009, becomingMaineToday Media. Six of the television stations were sold toSinclair Broadcast Group; WOKR was sold toAckerley Group, later to be purchased byDeerfield Media, which is operated by Sinclair through aLMA.
| Media market | State | Station | Purchased | Sold | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tallahassee | Florida | WTWC-TV | 1996 | 1998 | |
| Springfield–Decatur | Illinois | WICS | 1986 | 1998 | |
| Champaign–Urbana | WICD | 1994 | 1998 | [A] | |
| Cedar Rapids | Iowa | KGAN | 1981 | 1998 | |
| Portland | Maine | WGME-TV ** | 1954 | 1998 | [a] |
| Springfield | Massachusetts | WGGB-TV | 1967 | 1998 | [b] |
| Rochester | New York | WOKR | 1995 | 1998 |
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