Rockville Centre, NY, (July 15, 1996) -- Joe Walsh, President & CEO of Yellow Book Co. Inc., announced a major acquisition in the directory publishing industry today: Yellow Book, the oldest and largest non-telephone company publisher of yellow pages in the U.S., has acquired Gannett Community Directories of NJ from Gannett Satellite Information Network, Inc., a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc.
The acquisition includes a total of 40 local community directories published by Gannett, 38 of which are in New Jersey published under a number of titles: Handy Guide Directories (7), Better Phone Books (4), Little Yellow Books (15), Yellow Books of NJ (10), the Princeton University Campus Directory and Rutgers University Faculty/Staff Directory. Directory markets span more than 175 communities in the New Jersey counties of Bergen, Hudson, Passaic, Essex, Morris, Union, Somerset, Middlesex, Hunterdon and Mercer.
Two additional directories published as Talking Phone Books in the upstate New York markets of Elmira and Binghamton were also purchased by Yellow Book. Total circulation for the Gannett directories is 1,080,000.
Founded in 1930, Yellow Book has grown through both start-up and acquisition to now publish over 170 directories--with a total circulation of more than 4.5 million--in suburban Philadelphia; Long Island and upstate New York; Florida; South Jersey; and now northern and central New Jersey. Yellow Book is headquartered in Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York.
Gannett Community Directories, with offices in Paramus, NJ, had been the largest independent yellow pages publisher in the state of New Jersey. Their NJ directories have been publishing since 1952.
Joe Walsh, President & CEO of Yellow Book, commented "Gannett Community Directories has established a strong franchise and reputation for high quality, user-friendly telephone directories. This acquisition represents a major expansion for Yellow Book as we continue to grow hroughout New Jersey and now into upstate New York. It closely follows our purchase of Town Phone Books in South Jersey and recent expansion into the Philadelphia suburbs including Montgomery and Bucks counties, providing a platform for continuing growth in the Mid-Atlantic area."