Boston sampler
Is there room for two subway papers in Boston?
We're about to find out. Super-salesman Russel Pergament, who started Metro Boston and then launched AM New York, has returned to Boston and plans to start yet another free daily, this one called Boston Now. He wants to be on the street for the back-to-school selling season and promises a paper that will emphasize staff-written local news. That has certainly not been the track record of these McPapers, which are loaded with wire-service stories.
Pergament is being bankrolled by Dagsbrun, an Icelandic conglomerate that operates that country's second-largest telecommunications company and its largest media company. Pergament says Dagsbrun wants to start free tabloids in eight to 10 US cities within the next few years.
Boston Now will put Pergament in direct competition with Metro Boston, the paper he started in 2001. Metro Boston has the advantage of being here first, and having corporate parents -- London-based Metro International and The New York Times Co. (owner of The Boston Globe) -- with much deeper pockets. What Dagsburn has is Pergament, who at 59 has the enthusiasm of my 6-year-old. He worked for Metro in Boston and competed against it in New York.
Pergament says he is not worried about the Metro. "Metro is not a concern to me. Metro has maybe 2 percent of the local print market. There is real money in this market if people know what they are doing," he says. Of his new paper, Pergament says: "Our commitment is local . . . We are going to break some news. It is not going to be just watered down wire copy."
Stuart Layne, the Metro's publisher, says "I would rather there were only one in Boston," but says there is room for both free papers. "The free daily newspaper is the future of the newspaper business," he says. Layne said the Metro will soon increase distribution to 200,000 from 165,000 and predicted revenue will be up 50 percent this year. Two industry executives estimated Metro revenue at $12 million.
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To build a big building, you need a big tenant. And one of the biggest in town is in the market right now.
If Ropes & Gray, the city's largest law firm, decides to leave International Place when its lease expires in 2010, it could be the tenant that finally gets an office tower built. Developer Joe Fallon would love to have Ropes at Fan Pier, as would the developers of Russia Wharf, South Station, and the Filene's site downtown. Boston Properties has space at the Prudential Center.
Ropes currently occupies 325,000 square feet in 17 floors of International Place I, and is looking for about 450,000 feet. Neither Ropes nor International Place's Don Chiofaro will comment. Industry executives are betting Ropes stays put because it will ultimately be more expensive to move. But Chiofaro is famously difficult to negotiate with. One industry executive said Chiofaro recently offered Ropes a lease at $63 a square foot and then pulled it off the table.
With rents going up, it's a very good time to own a building.
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Neighborhood news: Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke this week warned about widening economic inequality. One example he cited of how the rich are getting richer: the Boston Red Sox. "Two decades ago, the highest-paid player for the Boston Red Sox (and in the American League), Jim Rice, earned (in inflation-adjusted terms) just over $3 million. In 2004, the highest-paid player on the Red Sox (and in all of major-league baseball) was Manny Ramirez, who received $22.5 million for the season. The number of fans who can fit into Fenway Park has not increased much since Jim Rice's day. But presumably the Red Sox owners believe that Ramirez's higher salary was justified by the increases in broadcast and merchandising revenues he might generate as a result of the confluence of new distribution channels . . . and a larger and wealthier potential global audience."
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902. 
