New Media Communications, the publishers of Jamaica's Sunday Herald newspaper, wants to buy the newspaper properties that fell to Michael Lee Chin when he picked up CVM media group in his acquisition of Neville Blythe's UGI Group.
"We have an interest in X-News and Teen Herald," New Media executive and Sunday Herald managing editor, Desmond Richards told the Financial Gleaner.
"We have raised the matter." While he has had no formal offers for the newspapers, CVM's chairman, Wayne Chen, suggested that the group would entertain a discussion.
"We will look at all options," Chen said. "But it is early days yet." New Media is owned by Richards; broadcast journalist, Cliff Hughes; the Sunday Herald's executive editor, Christine King; the publisher of the the regional, North Coast Times, Franklyn McKnight; and Earl De Rizzio, who has published a string of mostly short-lived magazines. The group is apparently optimistic that they might be able to pick up the two relatively small publications on the assumption that they are unlikely to fit into Lee Chin's emerging media strategy.
The Jamaican/Canadian billionaire, who made his fortune in mutual funds management in Canada and owns Jamaica's National Commer-cial Bank, has expanded into media in recent years, starting with his acquisition of a stake in RJR Group three years ago.
Lee Chin is also half owner of Columbus Communications, which operates under the Flow brand in Jamaica, using fibre optic links to bundle telephone, Internet and cable television services to business and homes. Columbus also owns cable television and other telecommunications properties in the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago. Flow, having already bought two, is on the hunt for other cable television providers in Jamaica, appears a more natural fit with the radio station, HOT 102 and CVM Television, the other media properties in CVM Group.
"Given where Lee Chin seems to be going, he many not want to go there with the papers," said Richards.
While Wayne Chen that CVM would have to "undertake strategic thinking about the future", giving the grater convergence between electronic communications and entertainment technologies, he made clear that they were not about to give-away either X-News, down market, supermarket-type weekly tabloid, or Teen Herald, which is sold mostly in high schools. "X-News is a strong brand that has built up a certain type of reputation for investigative reporting and entertainment, with strong circulation abroad," Chen said.
The implication, therefore, is the New Media, operated by working journalists, will have to find the cash to make a credible offer for Lee Chin's papers.
Richards and his partners have kept the Sunday Herald going for nearly a decade, since take-over the paper from Blythe, whose Jamaica Herald, retreated from the daily market in the face of bruising competition with The Gleaner and the Jamaica Observer.
But despite what publishers and advertising agencies say is a difficult advertising market for traditional media companies, New Media not only hopes to acquire Lee Chin's papers, but to expand their current offering. "We plan to publish our mid-week Herald from next June when we celebrate our 10th anniversary," said Richards. "We wanted to start before, but were not able to get going before. We had also spoken to Neville Blythe about X-News."
- business@gleanerjm.com
