With the Portland Phoenix on the market, a new alt weekly emerges to fight for territory

Earlier this week, news came out that the Portland Phoenix, a 15-year-old alternative weekly newspaper and the last of four regional Phoenix publications, was on the market and faced an uncertain future.

A long rumored potential sale to a local employee fell through, and neither officials with the Boston-based Phoenix Media/Communications Group which owns the paper nor the local management would say whether the newspaper will continue publishing beyond this week.

Setting the stage for the Portland Phoenix’ current precarious position was the closure earlier this month of its sister paper, the Providence (Rhode Island) Phoenix, a move which itself was preceded by the closures of Massachusetts Phoenix papers in Boston and Worcester, and the sell-off of other media properties by Phoenix Media.

To read more about how we got here, click here.

digToday, Boston-based Dig Publishing LLC, which puts out the popular 15-year-old Dig Boston alt weekly, announced it’s making a play for Portland, seeking to step into what would be a void if the Portland Phoenix doesn’t find a way to soldier on.

Marc Shepard, associate publisher for Dig Publishing, is no stranger to the Portland market, having previously worked as the associate publisher for the Portland Phoenix for a decade. So he has a good sense for what this market can support financially, and probably wouldn’t be making this move if he thought Portland couldn’t support another alt weekly.

For what it’s worth, the Phoenix seemed from the outside to keep up its advertising ratio and page count in recent years, two related metrics that suggest it was financially stable and perhaps its problems came from the larger management network, not local viability. (That said, I haven’t seen the company’s books, so take that as an observation, not definitive proof of anything.)

I called Marc this morning and he said he couldn’t say much more about his organization’s venture in Maine’s largest city, but did say Dig Publishing is not just stepping in to buy the Phoenix paper. That, to me, means it’s likely we’ll be seeing a new alt weekly here under the Dig brand.

Dig Publishing owner Jeff Lawrence said in a statement Dig Portland “will be 100 percent locally focused and operated, delivering alt weekly news, arts, and entertainment coverage to a young demographic across print, digital, social media, email, and live event channels.”

Lawrence and Shepard both said they believe that despite what seems to be a run of alt weekly closures, they feel confident that “the industry is strong, healthy and still growing.”

An announcement of Dig Publishing’s plan to launch in Portland made direct reference to the Phoenix management group’s decision to sell its Portland property as a reason, Shepard said, “the timing is right” for Dig.

“Beginning with the launch of the Casco Bay Weekly in 1988, Portland has been a welcoming home to the alt weekly style of local media for over 25 years,” he said in a statement. “We’re proud and extremely excited about the opportunity to keep that voice alive with Dig Portland.”

Seth Koenig

About Seth Koenig

Seth has nearly a decade of professional journalism experience and writes about the greater Portland region.