Boston Herald history

In 1861, with the advent of the Civil War and an increased demand for news, the Sunday Herald was established.

In 1840, the Daily Advertiser took over five older Boston newspapers, including the Independent Chronicle, which was founded in 1768. It continued to gain a higher profile and by the time the Great Fire of 1872 hit Newspaper Row (the area near today’s Government Center), the Advertiser was keeping Boston well-informed.

On September 3, 1884, The Boston Evening Record was started by the Boston Advertiser as a campaign newspaper.

In 1904, William Randolph Hearst began publishing his own newspaper in Boston called The American.

In 1912, the Herald acquired the Traveler, continuing to publish both under their own names.

In October 1917, John H. Higgins, the publisher and treasurer of the Boston Herald bought out its next door neighbor The Boston Journal and created The Boston Herald and Boston Journal

By 1938, the Daily Advertiser had changed to the Daily Record, and The American had become the Sunday Advertiser.

A third paper owned by Hearst, called the Afternoon Record, which had been renamed the Evening American, merged in 1961 with the Daily Record to form the Record American.

Three years later, in 1964, the Sunday Advertiser switched to a tabloid format.

After a newspaper strike in 1967, Herald-Traveler Corp. suspended the afternoon Traveler and absorbed the evening edition into the Herald to create the Boston Herald Traveler.

The first editions published under the new combined name were those of June 19, 1972.

In 1973 Murdoch entered the American newspaper business by purchasing two San Antonio, Texas, dailies, one of which—the San Antonio News (later the Express-News)—he transformed into a sex-and-scandal sheet that soon dominated the city’s afternoon market.

The Boston Herald American became a tabloid newspaper in September 1981.

The company announced it would close the Herald American—making Boston a one-newspaper town—on December 3, 1982.

In 1993 he purchased Star TV, a pan-Asian television service based in Hong Kong, as part of his plan to build a global television network.

In February 1994, Patrick Purcell, publisher of the Boston Herald and a News Corp. executive, purchased the Boston Herald from Murdoch’s News Corp. and established it as an independent newspaper.

Herald Media established its online division in 1995 with the introduction of jobfind.com, New England’s premier online recruitment site.

In 2001, Herald Media acquired Community Newspaper Co., a group of four suburban dailies and numerous weekly, online and specialty publications.

He subsequently looked to increase his company’s Internet holdings, and in 2005 he bought Intermix Media, owner of Myspace.com, a social networking site that had more than 30 million members.

After years of operating profits at Community Newspaper and losses at the Herald, Purcell in 2006 sold the suburban chain to newspaper conglomerate Liberty Group Publishing of Illinois, which soon after changed its name to GateHouse Media.

Myspace suffered declining membership with the rise of rival social networking site Facebook, and News Corporation sold the site in 2011 for $35 million, hundreds of millions of dollars less than its purchase price.

On August 5, 2013, the Herald launched an internet radio station named Boston Herald Radio which includes radio shows by much of the Herald staff.

The new owner, DFM, said they would be keeping 175 of the approximately 240 employees the Herald had when it sought bankruptcy protection in December 2017.