• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, September 8, 2011

Two large regional newspaper publishers -- Journal Register Company and MediaNews Group -- are joining forces on the digital front, providing online advertisers with greater scale and reach by combining their Web properties under unified management.

Their combined digital properties will be managed by a new company created by Journal Register, called Digital First Media.

Digital First Media will be headed by John Paton, a director of Journal Register Co., who will act as CEO of both companies. He replaces former MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton, who will remain as chairman of MediaNews, as well as publisher of The Denver Post and The Salt Lake Tribune.

According to the terms of the deal, Paton and Digital First Media will report to the boards of both MediaNews Group and Journal Register Company. In addition to benefiting from increased advertising scale and reach, MediaNews Group said it will reap "immediate cost benefits," which however were not specified.

Together, the two companies, which will continue to publish their print newspapers as separate entities, will offer advertisers 880 media platforms with presences in 18 states, reaching over 57 million American consumers per month -- 21 million via Journal Register and 36 million via MediaNews Group.

MediaNews Group publishes the Denver Post and Detroit News along with 55 other daily newspapers and more than 100 non-daily publications around the country. Journal Register Co. publishes 18 newspapers, including the New Haven Register.

Also this week, MediaNews Group dropped a year-old deal with Righthaven, which had been hired by MediaNews Group to protect its copyright on online news content. In August, the company unveiled digital subscription plans for 23 local newspapers, similar to the paywalls put in place by bigger newspapers like The New York Times.

Both newspaper publishers are contending with the same secular declines afflicting the rest of the newspaper business.

In January 2010, MediaNews Group (which is privately held) entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which it exited two months later in a "pre-packaged" agreement with lenders. Journal Register Co., which is also privately held, entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 2009; it exited bankruptcy in August of that year.