Cape Cod Publishing Company

Last updated
Cape Cod Publishing Co.
Industry Newspapers
FoundedSeptember 1990
DefunctJanuary 11, 1996
FateDissolved into parent
Successor Community Newspaper Company
Headquarters Orleans, Massachusetts
United States
Key people
Greg O'Brien, president 1990-1993
Vicki Ogden, president 1993-1996
Products Weekly newspapers on Cape Cod
Parent Fidelity Investments

Cape Cod Publishing Company, based in Orleans, Massachusetts, United States, was a publisher of weekly newspapers in the 1990s. It was created by Fidelity Investments as a holding company for newspapers acquired on Cape Cod, and eventually folded into Fidelity's Community Newspaper Company. CNC is now owned by GateHouse Media.

Contents

History

Four years before Cape Cod Publishing was formed, Fidelity Investments had provided some financing in Cape publisher Barry Paster's successful bid for North Shore Weeklies. [1] The North Shore papers eventually became the first component of Fidelity's newspaper chain, which came to be known as Community Newspaper Company.

In 1990, Paster sold his original paper, The Register of Yarmouth—to Fidelity, which also picked up The Cape Codder of Orleans, a twice-weekly covering the Outer Cape, from longtime publisher Malcolm Hobbs. [2]

The company grew substantially in 1991 with the purchase of 12 weekly newspapers, known as ‘’Cape Cod Newspapers’’, from Memorial Press Group, including the Yarmouth Sun, Dennis Bulletin, Bourne Courier, Cape Cod News, Cape Cod Oracle (later, split into Oracles in Harwich, Brewster, Orleans, Wellfleet, Eastham and the ‘’Chatham Current’’), Mashpee Messenger and Village Broadsider. The combined circulation of The Register and the Cape Codder was given, at the time, as 27,000; the new additions—two paid weeklies and 10 free papers—added 60,000. [3]

Cape Cod Publishing held on to this core through the mid-1990s, [4] until it was dissolved in early 1996. CNC realigned its operating units by geography, although the Cape papers were transferred wholesale to CNC's new "Cape Unit", a division of the South Unit. [5]

By 1999, several of the Cape papers had closed or been consolidated: Cape Cod News was gone, and the company's Bourne, Mashpee and Sandwich properties were consolidated into one publication, the Upper Cape Codder. Later separated, the Bourne and Sandwich newspapers were closed again by GateHouse/Gannett in the summer of 2021.

Properties

Since its founding in 1990, Cape Cod Publishing and its successor, CNC's Cape Unit (part of the South Unit) have published several free "Pennysaver" publications as well as several weekly newspapers on Cape Cod:

Several of the papers cover adjoining towns, as well: the Courier now circulates in Mashpee (replacing the defunct Messenger); the Cape Codder covers the territory from Orleans to Provincetown; The Register covers Barnstable and Dennis; the Upper Cape Codder for eight years covered Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee and Sandwich.

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References

  1. ↑ Adams, Jane Meredith. "North Shore Weeklies Inc. Is Sold". The Boston Globe, page 69, October 9, 1986.
  2. ↑ Vennochi, Joan. "Fidelity's Quiet Venture Into Newspapers". The Boston Globe, June 23, 1991.
  3. ↑ McLaughlin, Jeff. "Cape Cod Publisher Buys 12 Newspapers". The Boston Globe, October 18, 1991.
  4. ↑ Jurkowitz, Mark. "Does Fidelity Have a Nose for News?" The Boston Globe, December 5, 1995.
  5. ↑ Cassidy, Tina. "Community Newspaper Realigns Properties". The Boston Globe, January 12, 1996.
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