Chesapeake Bay Media announced today that it is adding Bay Weekly, the longtime southern Maryland-based newspaper, to its growing regional media family.
In late September, Bay Weekly announced that after 26 years of faithful production it would close unless new ownership could be established. Annapolis-based Chesapeake Bay Media LLC, which publishes Chesapeake Bay Magazine and Bay Bulletin—a 24/7 multimedia news channel—along with several specialty destination, travel, and maritime publications, agreed to take ownership of Bay Weekly on Tuesday, November 26, 2019.
“This newspaper strengthens our media platform,” said John Martino, CEO of Chesapeake Bay Media. He added, “We’ve spent the last 5 ½ years, the entire time we’ve owned this company, creating and refining media products that connect people with the region around them. We were thrilled when our Facebook reach hit 2.2 million people in one month this fall, and now we’ve added another channel that reaches thousands more at the local level.”
In her weekly Editor’s Letter, Bay Weekly editor and publisher Sandra Olivetti Martin writes to readers:
“I feel like a kid on Christmas morning telling you the just-made news that, come January 1, 2020, Bay Weekly will live on under the care of Chesapeake Bay Media. We’ll be the first print weekly to join the multi-media company famous as the publishers of Chesapeake Bay Magazine.”
First launched in 1993 as the New Bay Times, Bay Weekly is freely picked up and read by more than 60,000 people at 500+ locations throughout Anne Arundel and Calvert Counties. Staunchly supported by small and local businesses, the paper will continue publishing with the same mission and existing staff. Bay Weekly will operate in shared office space with their new parent company and share content with Bay Bulletin.
“We think local news is the most sought-after in the media landscape, and Bay Weekly has set a good example how to maintain connections with the towns they serve,” said Chesapeake Bay Magazine Publisher John Stefancik. “We’ve watched Bay Weekly for years, admiring both their steady advertising business and commitment to their community,” he added.
Chesapeake Bay Magazine has served as the watershed’s media of record with pertinent, award-winning content covering Chesapeake Bay culture and living since 1971. Bay Bulletin is the magazine’s free, subscription-based digital news source. Combined with its website, ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com, Chesapeake Bay Media’s print, digital and social media content reaches more than 500,000 people in the mid-Atlantic.
