By Branko Brkic

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16 Oct 2009

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NY Times Co. chairman and The New York Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr announced on Thursday that he will no longer seek a buyer for New England’s most important newspaper, the Boston Globe. NYTimes bought it for a record $1.1 billion in 1993 and the newspaper was very profitable until last year’s recession exposed the growing weaknesses of print-based models and resulted in massive losses (projected at $85 million this year). And as the company’s flagship, The New York Times, also started bleeding red ink, coupled with a disastrous share buy-back scheme that drained corporate coffers and didn’t increase share price, the resulting cash crunch meant that the Boston Globe was the first on the chopping block. After wrestling major concessions from print and distribution unions, Sulzberger was ready to sell the newspaper. There was only one problem he couldn’t solve: there were no buyers. So on Thursday it was announced that the Boston Globe was off the market finally. Its future, however, remains in doubt. We do hope someone eventually gives the venerable daily a warm, loving and cuddly home.

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