At a June 2000 community-journalism forum sponsored by MassINC, one complaint about CNC’s coverage of Newton triggered such a torrent of criticism aimed at then–CNC editor in chief Mary Jo Meisner that the moderator had to keep the audience from turning into a lynch mob.
At UMass, Purcell said, “Fidelity made a mistake when amassing its empire. They thought they could have regional impact. As a result, they alienated all the people who were reading it” for local news. (Under Fidelity, for example, there was a three-person State House bureau churning out regional stories.)
If Purcell believed in local, he also appears to have been an advocate of trimming at CNC. According to numbers provided by Herald Media, the Herald itself has 673 FTEs (full-time positions). CNC and Herald Interactive, together, have another 924. At the time of the sale to Purcell, CNC alone had an employee roster of about 1200 — a number that at one time might have been as high as 1600.
Numbers in the Herald Media kit also put the total circulation of the CNC weeklies at about 485,000, while Fidelity claimed about 600,000 weekly subscribers when it sold the chain.
Stressing the mom-and-pop nature of the CNC enterprise, Purcell said on Friday that the operation probably has about 20,000 to 25,000 advertisers, and roughly 80 percent of them spend less than $2000 a year.
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.
Last year Purcell, citing the Globe’s potential to tip the competitive balance in Boston, waged an unsuccessful campaign to keep it from grabbing a stake in the Boston edition of the Metro tabloid. And while he may take some succor from the serious revenue and circulation problems that could necessitate another round of Globe cuts to follow last year’s wrenching buy-outs, Purcell still finds himself with limited options if there is no buyer for the Herald.
“Nobody in their right mind would be thinking about [buying] paid dailies,” bluntly asserts one analyst.