Sale in Suburbia

Faced with the competition of the big-city press and other news media, suburban dailies tend to be lackluster compendia of wire-service copy, plumped out with movie schedules and strictly local news. Such papers may rank low on journalism's merit scale, but they often can be immensely profitable businesses. One lucrative example is the Macy chain in New York State's Westchester and Rockland Counties, where the nine Macy papers have been making large profits for 40 years. Last week this highly successful suburban group was sold to an even more profitable smalltown chain.

The buyer was Gannett newspapers, a string of 15 dailies (total circ. 877,000) largely located in upper New York State. The competent Gannett papers grew fat under the laissez-faire leadership of the late Frank Ernest Gannett, who permitted his editors wide latitude to run their shows as they saw fit, even down to disputing the boss.

Under Valentine Macy, 65, and his brother J. Noel, 64, the Westchester group has developed into a journalistic property that attracted many bidders. After inheriting the nucleus of the chain and $30 million from their father in 1930, the two Macys spread their enterprise over such well-fixed Westchester communities as Tarrytown, Mamaroneck, Mount Vernon and New Rochelle. The chain's 175,000 circulation is a useful addition to the Gannett fold. But the major beneficiaries are likely to be suburbanites in Westchester, where the caliber of the local journalism can only improve.

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