Media Watch

Happy New Year, GateHouse employees

Owner of eight local weeklies suspends 401(k) match
Virus infects e-mail systems of a number of GateHouse newspapers

Just when you think it can't get worse for GateHouse Media - the company whose extensive holdings include eight Cape and Islands weeklies - it gets worse.

Pinching pennies as its once-lucrative newspapers business heads south - and further darkening employee concerns about their respective futures - GateHouse is suspending its 401(k) match, Editor & Publisher reports.

In a memo sent out last Wednesday that was reprinted at the Romenesko site at www.poynter.org, Gatehouse Chief Executive Officer Michael Reed writes, "The terms of the company's 401(k) retirement savings plan allow for a discretionary employer matching contribution.

".... The company has determined to discontinue the discretionary employer matching contribution under the 401(k) plan effective Jan. 1, 2009," Reed writes.

In other developments, the Hamilton Wenham Chronicle let it be known that "e-mail accounts belonging to the Hamilton Wenham Chronicle and numerous other GateHouse Media newspapers were compromised early this week by a new computer virus.

"Any e-mails sent on Monday, Dec. 29 or later did not reach us," the Chronicle reports. "We are working on resolving this problem and will post a notice as soon as the system is fully functional again."

GateHouse Media New England has 128 newspapers in the Bay State including a network of 158 community websites. The chain is easily the largest in the United States with the lion's share of weeklies here on Cape Cod and the Islands. All except one was once owned by a local Cape Cod publisher. Here's the list as of the end of 2008:

• Provincetown Banner
• The Cape Codder
• Harwich Oracle
• The Register
• Sandwich Broadsider
• Falmouth Bulletin
• Bourne Courier
• Nantucket Independent

GateHouse Media's line-up includes 518 community publications, 265 related websites and seven yellow page directories. The company says it serves over 233,000 business advertising accounts and reaches approximately 10 million people on a weekly basis. According to its website, as of July 31, 2008, its products included:

• 97 daily newspapers with total paid circulation of approximately 834,000;
• 291 weekly newspapers (published up to three times per week) with total paid circulation of approximately 673,000 and total free circulation of approximately 936,000;
• 130 "shoppers" (generally advertising-only publications) with total circulation of approximately 2.1 million;
• More than 265 locally focused Web sites, which extend their franchises onto the internet; and
• Seven yellow page directories, with a distribution of approximately 758,000, that cover a population of approximately 2 million people.