The McClatchy Co. entered into separate agreements Friday to sell the assets of The Newspaper Network Inc. to Vertis Inc. and The Associated Press.
The Newspaper Network works with advertisers and newspapers nationwide in the planning, pricing and placement of newspaper advertising.
Vertis, an international marketing and advertising firm, will buy the sales, marketing and media planning assets of TNN and operate them as The Newspaper Network, a Vertis company.
That company will continue to do business from current TNN offices in Sacramento, CA; Greenville, SC; Atlanta and New York. Joining TNN's media functions with Vertis' media and marketing services unit is expected to result in media billings of more than $1 billion annually, establishing Baltimore-based Vertis as the nation's second-largest newspaper media-buying agency.
AP, New York, will buy TNN's ad-processing operations, which are responsible for all placement and billing processes.
Tom Brettingen, AP vice president of business development, said the acquisition will be a major addition to its present AP AdVantage ad-processing business and its AP AdSend ad-delivery business.
McClatchy, based in Sacramento, is a newspaper and Internet publishing company whose properties include the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, the Sacramento Bee and The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.
Terms of the agreements were not disclosed. The transactions are to be completed in June.
