Target Report: Surprising Dynamism in Market for Local Newspapers

The restructuring of the local news industry continues at a steady pace, driven by the dual forces of financial pressure on small publishers and the strategic ambitions of regional consolidators. Family-owned papers with deep community roots are increasingly turning to better-capitalized buyers in search of long-term sustainability. Meanwhile, new ownership models, from nonprofits to local investor groups, are reshaping the competitive landscape.

In past issues of The Target Report, we have covered transactions and trends in the newspaper publishing business, once a dominant segment of the broader printing industry. Indeed, many of today’s legacy commercial printing firms trace their origins back to local newspapers that added commercial work to better utilize excess press capacity.

The turmoil and ongoing decline in the newspaper industry have had a profound impact on web offset printers and significantly altered the paper grades produced by mills. To take a deeper look into the current dynamics shaping local newspaper ownership, I have invited Sara April, President of Dirks, Van Essen & April, the leading M&A advisory firm in the U.S. newspaper sector, to offer her insights into recent transactions, strategic drivers, and the evolving landscape of local journalism.

–  Mark Hahn

Local News: Market in Motion

By Sara April, Guest Author

The local media landscape continues to undergo fundamental reshaping, driven by a confluence of market pressures, strategic consolidations, and evolving ownership models. This is reflected in 2025’s steady merger and acquisition activity.

Smaller publishers are increasingly challenged by rising costs and limited scale, prompting sales to larger, better-capitalized buyers who can deliver operational efficiencies and regional synergies. At the same time, portfolio realignment and targeted clustering strategies are prompting both acquisitions and divestitures by some of the industry's most active players.

The result is a dynamic, fragmented market marked by a diverse and constantly evolving set of buyers, including regional groups, nonprofit entities, and local investors. The following explores key trends, notable transactions, and the strategic drivers behind recent M&A activity. We have tracked the sale of 97 local news titles in 38 transactions so far in 2025, which represents a similar pace compared to the prior year.

Activity Drivers: Lack of Sales

Smaller operators are facing increasing difficulties due to a lack of scale needed to manage expenses. This is driving them to sell, often with a larger company coming in as successful buyers. As these larger regional newspaper groups acquire smaller independent newspapers, they can create economies of scale and build stronger, more sustainable networks.

Enterprise Media Group, based in Blair, Nebraska, was one such seller. The sixth-generation family-owned company included 10 weekly newspapers and three total market coverage shoppers serving a regional market north of Omaha spanning eastern Iowa and western Nebraska. It was sold to Carpenter Media Group, one of the most prolific newspaper buyers in the past 18 months.

Carpenter Media Group burst onto the acquisition scene in March 2024 with its acquisition of Black Press Media, which included more than 150 newspapers and media operations across Western Canada, Washington and Hawaii. The company has gone on to complete more than 10 deals since then, including Enterprise Media Group, as well as EO Media Group in the pacific northwest, M. Roberts Media in Texas, Salem Publishing Company in Missouri, and Oregon-based Pamplin Media Group. The company now has operations in 19 states (as well as in Canada), providing great economies of scale.

Other smaller operators to have sold include the Campbell family in Owosso, Michigan. Published continuously since 1854, The Argus-Press was in its 131st year and fourth generation of Campbell family ownership. It was one of the longest-running independent, family-owned newspapers in Michigan. The family ultimately sold to Boone Newsmedia to take over stewardship of the company.*

Boone Newsmedia, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, owns and/or manages more than 60 newspapers, magazines, and digital properties across seven states, including Michigan. The company is known for its commitment to quality journalism, community engagement, and sustainable media operations.

Activity Drivers: Clustering Continues

Following in the same vein as creating economies of scale, owners of local media clusters continue to build larger regional footprints, allowing them to leverage management over more revenue and find value through consolidation of back-office functions. This trend, defined generally as buying a property within a two-county radius of an existing operation, has been driving activity for years.

MediaNews Group’s acquisition of The Santa Rosa Press Democrat expanded its California footprint in one such play. This deal expanded MNG’s presence in the Bay Area, where it already owned the San Jose Mercury News and the East Bay Times. The deal included The Press Democrat, the Sonoma Index-Tribune, the Petaluma Argus-Courier, the North Bay Business Journal, Sonoma magazine, the Sonoma County Gazette, and La Prensa Sonoma.

This was not MNG’s first foray into clustering by a longshot. Other deals employing this strategy include its acquisitions of The San Diego Union-Tribune, Times-Shamrock Communications in Pennsylvania, Redwing Publishing in Minnesota, and the Reading Eagle in Pennsylvania.

O’Rourke Media Group’s July acquisition of Metro Philadelphia and Philly Sports Network likewise capitalized on existing operations a company had in a region. OMG already published 11 local newspapers with local websites in the Philly suburbs, Bucks County and Montgomery County.  The acquisition creates the largest newspaper presence in the Philadelphia market, with a combined circulation of over 180,000 distributed to mailboxes and high-traffic locations across the region.

Activity Drivers: Portfolio Management

Portfolio management is also driving activity as both small and large companies constantly reassess which assets align with their strategic goals. One such case was The National Trust for Local News divesting the majority of its Colorado titles in June 2025 to Arizona-based Times Media Group.

The 21 Colorado titles sold had been part of the Trust’s first acquisition in 2021, which was heralded as the advent of a new model for community-supported journalism. The Trust followed its 2021 Colorado deal with the creation of the Maine Trust for Local News in 2023, which acquired 22 titles from Masthead Maine, including the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal in Augusta, and Waterville Morning Sentinel. The deal made the National Trust the largest publisher of newspapers in the state. The Trust announced its next deal in January 2024, when its Georgia Trust for Local News acquired 18 titles in rural Georgia. These included the Albany Herald, Dublin’s Courier Herald, Sparta Ishmaelite, and the Johnson Journal.

The National Trust cited financial challenges, including rising operational costs, as a factor in the decision to sell the 21 Colorado titles, which serve suburban Denver.  It continues to own seven small papers in the state that serve rural counties, as well as a printing press.

Carpenter Media Group, which we talked about above as the most prolific buyer in recent months, has also strategically divested when it’s made sense. The company found itself on the sell side of things when it divested its non-core operations in Stanly, North Carolina, recently. North State Media acquired CMG’s Stanly News & Press, which has been published in Stanly County under different names since 1880, with Stanly County Journal, the local edition of North State Journal that publishes weekly.

Move Makers: Diverse Group

Prior to 2020, there were many years in which two or three large companies were snapping up most of the newspapers that came on the market. BH Media, Adams Publishing Group, and New Media Investment Group (and GateHouse in its previous iteration) all took turns on that list. This, however, is the fifth year with a remarkably diverse buyer pool. Buyers today include traditional media companies, individual investors, non-profit organizations, and local community groups.

In a sample of 65 transactions that closed in 2022, 48 different buyers were represented. Forty of those buyers completed only a single transaction. This group included several independent, local buyers such as El Rito Media in New Mexico; Amy Duncan and her husband Mark Davitt in Iowa; and Kyle and Jordan Troutman in Missouri.

Jumping ahead to the 38 transactions we’ve tracked so far in 2025, 34 separate buyers are represented. This is unprecedented. The only repeats on the list are Carpenter Media Group; Sample News Group, which made two strategic acquisitions in New York; and Hearst with its headline-grabbing acquisition of the Austin American-Statesman earlier this year and quieter acquisition of the Waterbury Republican-American in Connecticut. It will go for a three-peat when it closes the deal to merge with the Dallas Morning News later this year, which will be the largest transaction of 2025 (following Austin), provided however that Alden Global Capital’s hostile bid for the paper comes to naught.

On the Horizon

Looking ahead, the local news market is poised to remain active, with consolidation, regional clustering, and strategic portfolio realignment continuing to shape ownership. As new players enter and legacy operators adapt, we expect an increasingly diverse mix of buyers to continue driving deal activity.

* Dirks, Van Essen & April, guest contributor, served as advisor to the Campbell family in this transaction.

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View The Target Report online, complete with deal logs and source links for July 2025

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