Friday, June 21: Times-Shamrock Communications today announced the acquisition of the Cleveland Scene and the Cleveland Free Times, alternative newsweeklies separately owned by Village Voice Media and Times Publishing Co. of Erie, Pa., respectively.

Terms of the purchase were not disclosed. The deal is to close on June 25.

The two alternative publications will continue to publish separately for their next three issues and then merge into a single newsweekly, the Scene, on July 23, according to Don Farley, publisher of the Alternative Group for Times-Shamrock Communications.

Mr. Farley said that Matt Fabyan, publisher of the Free Times, will be publisher of the combined Scene newsweekly.

“This is a great addition to our existing group of alternative newsweeklies,” Mr. Farley said. “We look forward to serving the greater Cleveland community for many, many years.”

The Scene and Free Times each has won dozens of awards from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists, the Cleveland Press Club and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. Times Publishing Co. has owned the Free Times since 2003. Village Voice Media, the nation’s largest publisher of alternative weeklies, has owned the Scene since 1998.

Scene will be Times-Shamrock’s fifth alternative newsweekly. Times-Shamrock, which is wholly owned by the Lynett and Haggerty families of Scranton, Pa., also publishes alternative newspapers in Baltimore, Detroit, San Antonio and Orlando.

Times-Shamrock also owns eight daily newspapers in Northeastern Pennsylvania, Virginia and St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; community weekly newspapers in Northeastern Pennsylvania and Upstate New York; and radio stations in Scranton, Baltimore, Tulsa, Reno and Milwaukee.

For more information contact:

Don Farley
443-452-1542 (office)
410-340-3651 (cell)

Matt Fabyan
216-479-2033 x 230