Tab Communications
| Industry | Newspapers |
|---|---|
| Fate | Bought, then dissolved |
| Successor | Community Newspaper Company |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Defunct | January 11, 1996 |
| Headquarters | 254 Second Avenue, Needham, Massachusetts 02494 United States |
|
Key people
|
Tab's three founders: Russel Pergament, CEO Dick Yousoufian, president Stephen Cummings, publisher From NewsWest merger: James F. Carlin, Tab chairman James Kerasiotes, Tab director |
| Products | Weekly newspapers in Boston and several western suburbs |
| Parent | Independent, 1979–1992 Fidelity Investments, 1992–1996 |
Tab Communications Inc. (also called Tabloid Newspaper Publishers), based first in Newton, Massachusetts, United States, then in nearby Needham, was a weekly newspaper publisher in Greater Boston before being bought by Fidelity Investments in 1992 and dissolved into Community Newspaper Company in 1996.
The company, founded in 1979, steadily expanded from one newspaper to 14 and made one major acquisition, buying its competitor NewsWest in 1989. Most of the Tabs are published by GateHouse Media, who bought CNC in 2006, and are still named after their tabloid format, although they are now broadsheets.
Three alternative weekly advertising representatives formed their own company in 1979, publishing the Brookline Tab and Newton Tab as advertising-heavy community papers. Two years later, prompted by the closure of The Real Paper, the company expanded into Boston and Cambridge.
At first, CEO Russel Pergament acknowledged that the papers gave softball coverage to some political topics, but said his papers were happy to "live on crumbs from The Globe's table"—to report the local news the big-city daily was missing. He said in 1981 that "we find that the people who live in Brookline and Newton know their local politics better than ever now, largely due to us."
Later that year, however, observers had kudos for the Cambridge Tab, citing its eye-catching headlines and devotion to issue-based journalism as separating it from the 137-year-old Cambridge Chronicle. One reader said he preferred the Tab because "I want to know what's going on behind the scenes in politics. I'm not so interested in who was born or who died or what's on the school lunch menu." Pergament continued to stress the importance of local coverage in a 1986 story about free local weekly papers in Time: "The key to our success is that we're relentlessly local," he said.
...
Wikipedia