Cox will sell Austin American Statesman

[PDittie]

https://t.co/r0KgI0L7ZT

My take. as a former newspaper executive for Hearst, is that the company may be the strongest contenders for this paper as they already own the Houston, San Antonio, Beaumont, Midland, Laredo, and Plainview dailies and a ton of weeklies in nearly every one of those markets.

They -- or anybody else who buys it -- will pay full price, as there is no hotter market in the US. Austin was recently ranked at the top of the list in the chase for Amazon's HQ2.

https://austin.curbed.com/2017/10/19/16505264/austin-amazon-headquarters-hq2-bid

[PDittie]

1. Potential buyers listed

here:

http://austin.culturemap.com/news/innovation/10-31-17-austin-american-statesman-now-up-for-sale-cox-media/

-- Gannett, which owns USA Today and more than 100 other daily newspapers around the country. In Texas, Gannett owns the daily newspapers in Abilene, Corpus Christi, San Angelo, and Wichita Falls.

-- GateHouse Media, which owns 125 daily newspapers. Although it doesn’t own any media outlets here, GateHouse’s Center for News & Design is located in Austin. The center, which employs more than 240 people, carries out design and editing functions for more than 250 daily and weekly newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News (which GateHouse does not own) and the features sections of the Statesman.

-- Hearst Newspapers, which publishes 24 daily newspapers in the U.S., including the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News.

-- A wealthy investor like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who bought The Washington Post in 2013.