May 14, 2008 — Times-Shamrock Communications, a privately owned media conglomerate based in Pennsylvania, submitted the winning bid in Monday's auction of the Daily News Publishing Co., which publishes The V.I. Daily News.
The sale is subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in a hearing scheduled for Friday in Pittsburgh. If approved, the newspaper will become Times-Shamrock's eighth daily newspaper.
"The Times-Shamrock submitted the winning bid to purchase the newspaper, which was being sold in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding against its parent holding company, Innovative Communication Corp., which also controls cable TV, Internet and telephone subsidiaries in the Caribbean and France," reads a story Wednesday in the online paper Times-Tribune.com, a Times-Shamrock publication.
Speculation had run high in the territory as to who would acquire the venerable Daily News, which has been in business in the territory continually since 1930. It was started by Ariel Melchoir Sr. and J. Antonio Jarvis in a four-page edition. Melchoir bought out Jarvis in th 1940s and ran the publication until he retired in the late 1970s. He sold the paper to Gannett in 1978. In 1997, Gannet sold the paper to Innovative Communication Corp., then owned by Jeffrey Prosser.
Though the Daily News Publishing Co. was not a debtor in the bankruptcy proceedings, the paper has been on the chopping block since Prosser's empire began crumbling in recent months.
Earlier this month Prosser lost another round in the bankruptcy proceedings, one that could have prevented the sale of The Daily News. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting in Philadelphia, issued a one-line order denying Prosser the stay (i.e. postponement) he had sought in the bankruptcy proceedings.
The latest ruling was handed down May 6 by Circuit Court Judges Dolores Sloviter, Thomas Ambro and Richard Nygaard. On May 1, V.I. federal court Judge Curtis V. Gómez ruled similarly against three different Prosser motions for stays. (See "Prosser Loses Another Procedural Round in Federal Court.")
Had Prosser won any of these decisions, the result would have brought the complex, ongoing sales of his former assets to a screeching halt. Among the transactions that would have been put on ice would have been the $7.7 million sale of the Bjerget House properties on St. Croix, already approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, and the scheduled auction of the V.I. Daily News.
Monday's transactions were not made public until the Daily News announced the winning bidder Wednesday.
"Matthew Haggerty, general manager of interactive media for Times-Shamrock, and George Lynett Jr., publisher of Times-Shamrock's daily newspaper in Towanda, The Daily Review, were in St. Thomas the past several days to negotiate the purchase and meet the staff," says The Times-Tribune story.
The paper quotes Haggerty on the purchase.
"We are very excited about adding the Virgin Islands Daily News to Times-Shamrock Communications," Haggerty said. "The Daily News has a great tradition of journalistic excellence, and we look forward to building on that tradition."
Times-Shamrock Communications, which is wholly owned by the Lynett and Haggerty families of Scranton, owns seven other daily newspapers, most in Pennsylvania, as well as several weekly alternative newspapers, radio stations, entertainment weeklies and community weeklies.
The Source was unable to reach any of the principals for comment Wednesday.
Back Talk Share your reaction to this news with other Source readers. Please include headline, your name and city and state/country or island where you reside.
