Philadelphia Weekly, South Philly Review Sold to Broad Street Media

The publisher of Broad Street Media — which owns the Northeast Times, the Star and several wire services — confirmed to City Paper that the company has purchased Philadelphia Weekly and the South Philly Review. Last month, Review Publishing sold Atlantic City Weekly to Berkshire Hathaway.

Broad Street Media publisher Perry Corsetti couldn’t immediately be reached. He told CP the deal was finalized at the end of last month.

Review Publishing, owned by investors led by Anthony Clifton, was founded in 1986 with three arms: The Welcomat, the South Philly Review and Comp-Art, a typography house. Comp-Art folded in 1993, and the Welcomat became Philadelphia Weekly in 1995. (Disclosure: I worked for PW for about three and a half years in my early 20s; I wrote an essay about my time there for PW’s 40th anniversary. Like many culture writers in this town, I’ve also written for City Paper.)

The company acquired the awesomely named WHOOT! newspaper in 2001 and renamed it AC Weekly. Review also published a Southwest Philly Review at one time. Clifton is the brother-in-law of Comcast’s Brian Roberts.

Broad Street Media was founded about five years ago when it purchased the Northeast Times, Star and other community papers and shopping supplements from Philadelphia Media Network (which owned the Inquirer and Daily News at the time). Broad Street Media was formed by a group of investors that include brothers Clifford and Stuart Richner of Richner Communications Inc., which publishes 28 papers and shopping supplements, mainly on Long Island.

Metro purchased City Paper in August.

[CP]

Previously: The Death (and Life) of the Philadelphia Weekly and Philadelphia City Paper