The prospective owners of Blethen Maine Newspapers would attempt to boost the content of printed products and better integrate and upgrade its Internet presence, the investment group's senior operating partner said Thursday.
Veteran publisher Richard Connor also cautioned that he couldn't be specific until the sale is complete and he gets more input from employees and community members in Maine.
"I don't have a cookie cutter for content at any daily or Sunday newspaper," he said.
Connor was in Maine on Thursday, a day after Blethen announced that it had signed a purchase agreement with Maine Media Investment LLC. The group includes former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and two longtime business associates, Robert Baldacci and Michael Liberty.
The sale is contingent on completing financing arrangements by year's end, a tough task during an economic downturn marked by tight credit and balky lenders.
Connor spent much of the day in Portland, meeting and talking with investors and with Portland Press Herald managers and editors. He also met with local bankers and a benefits expert, he said.
Connor, the editor and publisher of The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., sought to quell skepticism that the group couldn't raise enough money to buy and revitalize the struggling Maine newspapers.
Blethen Maine owns the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville and other media properties in the state.
"We believe we can make a change here," he said. "If I thought I couldn't do this, I wouldn't have stuck it out for eight months."
If Connor and his partners are successful, they will inherit a media outlet that has steadily shrunk its work force, content and resources in the face of declining advertising revenue and mounting debt. These are industrywide trends, to some degree, and Connor said the rising price of newsprint this year will challenge his ability to expand news content.
Newsprint is the second-largest expense in the business, behind labor, he noted.
One way to lower operating costs would be to lay off workers, as Blethen has done three times this year.
A Portland Newspaper Guild official said Wednesday that workers could expect "significant layoffs" next year, whether or not the sale went through. The company employs 580 people, 361 of them in Portland and at the Press Herald's printing plant in South Portland.
Connor declined Thursday to comment on future employment levels. Until all financing is in hand, he said, he can't calculate the debt obligation and revenue projections to help form an operating plan.
Connor has been in discussions with the leadership of the guild, which represents roughly 350 workers in Portland and Waterville. Among the topics are an employee stock ownership plan, in which workers would receive a stake in future profits in exchange for concessions in the current union contract.
Union-represented workers will learn more details about the proposed sale and prospects for layoffs or wage concessions during a meeting Tuesday, said Tom Bell, president of the local guild. "We don't want to tell the media before we talk to them," Bell said.
Union members then will face a vote. Failure to endorse a new contract to allow the sale probably would make it more difficult for Maine Media to receive all of its financing, Bell said. Rejection also would keep alive a legal dispute between Blethen and the union over whether a buyer must inherit the current labor agreement with the Press Herald. Arbitration is set for Jan. 13.
Bell said he will advise members to support the sale. In addition to gaining Connor's entrepreneurial experience, Bell said, the group also is likely to tap the skills of Kevin Cohen, William Cohen's son. Kevin Cohen recently left Turner Broadcasting, where he was a top executive in charge...
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