Media

Newsday sells its free daily newspaper amNewYork

Newsday is selling its freebie commuter paper amNewYork, relinquishing its last toehold in the five boroughs as it concentrates on its core Long Island audience.

The sale to Schneps Media, a growing publisher of weekly newspapers and magazines in the New York area, is effective Oct. 11. Terms were not disclosed, but according to one source amNewYork was estimated to be losing about $5 million a year.

Schneps, which was started by chairman and co-publisher Vicky Schneps-Yunis, started with the Queens Courier in 1985 and now publishes 33 weekly newspapers and 28 niche magazines across the metro area.

Schneps has been on a shopping spree. In December, it purchased New York Family from Manhattan Media, and in September 2018 it purchased the Community News Group from the husband-and-wife team of Les and Jennifer Goodstein.

It 2017, it purchased the weekly Long Island Press from Morey Publishing, which relaunched the long-defunct daily as a weekly.

amNewYork was launched by Russel Pergament in 2003 and was aimed primarily at giving rail and subway commuters a quick, free read. But the retrenchment of retail cutting into its ad base and the connectivity of mobile phones on subway and commuter rail lines meant less reason to pick up a newspaper.

It appears the new owner plans to keep it going.

“We are looking forward to enhancing amNewYork’s brand through our expertise in multi-platform media including print, digital, events, social media and broadcasting platforms,” said Joshua Schneps, Schneps Media co-publisher and CEO.

Debby Krenek, publisher of the Newsday Media Group — now a privately owned entity controlled by Patrick Dolan — said that the company will double down on its focus on Long Island as it pushes beyond print.

“Moving forward, Newsday Media Group will fully focus on serving Long Islanders with news, information and experiences as we continue to expand our multimedia products and platforms and fulfill our mission of being the primary source of powerful local journalism as ‘Your Eye on LI’,” Krenek said.

Newsday farmed out its printing to a New York Times plant in College Point and recently moved from its longtime headquarters on a former pasture in Melville into a new facility in an office park at 6 Corporate Center Drive, also in Melville.