• by Sara Guaglione , January 6, 2020

Schneps Media has acquired the assets of daily commuter newspapers Metro New York and Metro Philadelphia.

Metro New York will merge with New York City's other free, daily paper amNew York, and rebrand as amNewYork Metro, beginning today.

amNewYork Metro will expand amNewYork’s distribution from about 150,000 to 175,000 a day. Schneps purchased amNewYork in October from Long-Island-based Newsday Media Group.

Philadelphia is a new market for Schneps Media. Schneps executive Cliff Luster has been named group publisher for the New York and Philadelphia markets.

Former Metro executives Ed Abrams and Susan Pfeiffer will serve as publisher and associate publisher for New York City and Philadelphia, respectively. 

“I’m excited to be joining and leading the amNewYork Metro division with a company I competed with and also respected for many years,” Abrams stated.

Robert Pozarycki, amNewYork’s current editor in chief, will serve in the same role for the combined New York City media effort.

“This is an exciting next step for our entire organization, offering a unique opportunity to strengthen our position in the daily newspaper market and increase our readership to over 2.5 million readers in print each week and many more online,” stated Schneps Media CEO Joshua Schneps.

Staff at Metro New York and Metro Philadelphia were laid off Friday, according reporting from the New York Post.  Schneps will offer jobs to some of the let-go employees, the NYP reports.

Soon, Schneps hopes to launch amNY TV, with content across multiple digital platforms. The first series will be “The World’s Fare,” featuring international restaurants and their chefs in New York City.

Schneps is a New York-based publisher of more than 50 newspapers and magazines, including weeklies The Park Slope Courier, Gay City News and Caribbean Life, as well as Bayside Times, The Villager and Long Island Press.