The Eagle-Tribune - Subsidiaries

Subsidiaries

As part of the Eagle-Tribune's push into the suburbs—a move which has left some bitterness in the city -- the paper has acquired several weekly newspapers within and bordering its coverage area.

Weeklies published within the paper's circulation area by Eagle-Tribune Publishing Company include the Andover Townsman, circulating 6,900 copies per week in Andover; the Haverhill Gazette, 6,400 in Haverhill; and Town Crossings, 14,700 in Boxford and North Andover.

Bordering The Eagle-Tribune's circulation area in southern New Hampshire, the company publishes the Carriage Towne News in Exeter and nine other towns; and the weekly Derry News in Derry and five other towns.

In 2002, the paper made its largest acquisition, scooping up some of its chief daily competitors for US$64 million. The purchase of the Essex County Newspapers chain from Ottaway Community Newspapers, a division of Dow Jones & Company, brought three neighboring afternoon dailies into the fold: the Gloucester Daily Times, The Daily News of Newburyport and The Salem Evening News. Eagle-Tribune executives touted the creation of a regional news organization; they also laid off some 45 staffers at the Essex County papers, including some editors of the Newburyport and Salem papers.

Since then, the four dailies and the weeklies have made several cost-saving consolidations, cutting down to one printing facility and combining advertising staffs. In 2005, the company employed 700 and reached 341,000 readers in 55 communities, according to a spokesman. In September 2008, the company laid off 52 employees in a cost-cutting move.

With its acquisition of the Eagle-Tribune, CNHI also assumed a 49 percent stake in Costa-Eagle Radio Ventures Ltd. and its three radio stations, WCCM, WCEC (formerly WHAV) and WNNW. Continuing its deemphasis of its home town, the company moved WCCM, a long-time Lawrence radio station to a smaller signal in Haverhill and then to its smallest signal in Salem, N.H. The former owners of the Eagle-Tribune created Cambridge Acquisitions, Inc. during the fall of 1994 to hold the minority stake, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Corporations Division.