Observers generally give Purcell a passing, if mixed, grade at CNC. Given the cutting that Fidelity did prior to the 2001 sale, “I think there’s been a leveling effect,” says one community-media analyst. “I think it got better for a while [under Herald Media] and then I think it leveled out.”
One editorial strong point is the MetroWest Daily News, with a circulation of about 25,000.
“The flagship of the CNC chain is the MetroWest Daily News, which I think is a pretty-darn-good newspaper,” says CommonWealth magazine editor Robert Keough, who lauds CNC for doing a good job of “grounding a daily newspaper in a non-metropolitan suburban area.”
Widely viewed as economically viable (Bailey put the operating profit at about $20 million) and well entrenched in some of Boston’s tonier suburbs, CNC seems to be the shiny bauble in Purcell’s empire — which has led to speculation that he may have to uncouple it from the Herald.
“I think the suburban weeklies represent a good opportunity for somebody who knows the business,” says one newspaper observer. “The demographic flexibility with real-strong sales leadership — it could have some real momentum for the right operator. In the right hands, those weeklies can be a home run.”
Wither the Herald?
In some quarters, Purcell earns kudos simply for keeping Boston a two-newspaper town since he bought the troubled tabloid in 1994.
“To make a big-city tabloid successful in this environment would take one of the best operators in the country,” says Russel Pergament, a former CNC executive who now publishes the commuter tabloid amNewYork. “And Pat is one of those guys.”
Although his numbers are closely held, Purcell has said that the Herald began turning a profit in 1986 and had generally stayed in the black except during the early-’90s recession. But in recent years, obvious fiscal problems have led to a major rethinking of the paper’s editorial philosophy.
Starting in 2003 — when former editor Ken Chandler returned to shift the Herald away from competing directly with the Globe on politics and news and toward a splashier, trashier, and more populist tabloid style — it was obvious that Purcell was looking for a new formula.
Then last year he went after $7 million in savings — a process that led to about 45 newsroom departures, mostly through buy-outs. In a key concession from the unions, Purcell won the right to use content from non-union CNC employees in the pages of the Herald, which is why there’s now an editor on the Herald city desk who manages the flow of CNC stories into the tabloid.
At the same time, Herald circulation continued to drop, and for the six months ending last September, daily circulation was about 231,000 — a drop of more than 32,000 copies in the five years that Purcell has owned CNC.
