SouthComm acquires Cincinnati weekly

SouthComm Inc., the parent of Nashville Post, announced Monday it has acquired CityBeat, an alternative weekly in Cincinnati, from Lightborne Publishing Inc. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The award-winning CityBeat launched in November of 1994 and becomes the sixth alt weekly under the SouthComm umbrella, making the company the second-largest owner of alt weeklies in the country. The company also owns the Nashville Scene, LEO in Louisville, the Kansas City Pitch and Creative Loafing papers in Charlotte and Tampa. CEO Chris Ferrell said SouthComm’s latest expansion fits its model of operating niche publications in mid-sized cities throughout the Southeast and Midwest.

“CityBeat has a long history of covering the local government, music, arts and culture scene in Cincinnati,” Ferrell said. “We look forward to having them as part of the SouthComm family of publications. We are excited to expand into Cincinnati, which is a very good city for us to build out our model of having multiple niche publications in each market.”

Dan Bockrath, the publisher of CityBeat, will remain in his role at the helm of the publication.

“After years of operating this paper independently, I am excited to have a peer group of publishers to share ideas with and learn from,” Bockrath said. “The other SouthComm papers are some of the best in the country in markets the size of ours. I think the best years of CityBeat are still in front of us. I am very energized by this acquisition.”

The transaction also includes the other assets of Lightborne Publishing, including the women’s magazine A-Line and the MidPoint Music Festival.

Source: http://nashvillepost.com/news/2012/3/5/southcomm_acquires_cincinnati_weekly